Richard Ingrams
It is not often that one is able to praise a book by a friend or colleague without a note of insincerity creeping in, which is why I rejoice in commending unreservedly and with all the sincerity I can muster Miss Jane Ellison's brilliantly funny first novel A Fine Excess. Wry, spry and Waugh-spish (Geddit?) this is a knockabout send-up of the literary scene, all the better for not being based on real people. Spectator readers may, however, recognise and enjoy the description on p.41 of one of their best-loved contributors having his lunch in a well-known Soho hostelry. It made me laugh out loud.
I have also enjoyed Crampton Hodnet, Barbara Pym's posthumously published first novel which is not at all bottom drawer stuff and contains a number of very good jokes; and A Dying Fall by June Thom- son, a straightforward, very well written detective story, is as clear and convincing as Dick Francis.
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