20 NOVEMBER 1993, Page 38

A.N. Wilson

I think that Shadow Play by Frances Fyfield (Bantam, £14.99) is her best novel to date, and that means it is pretty good. My hair stood on end for about a week after finish- ing it. Richard Wallace and Wynne Williams have produced a superb commen- tary on The Acts of the Apostles (Bristol Classical Press, £6.95) writing about the most entertaining book of the New Testa- ment as much from a geographical and his- torical as a theological point of view. A surprisingly large amount is historical. In The Mardi Gras Cat (Heinemann, £9.99) Naomi Lewis has produced a collection of rhymes which are certainly as good as, and in some respects are better than, T. S. Eliot. They are beautifully illustrated by Paul Stagg.