Pat Conroy's Beach Music (Black Swan, £16.99 in UK) is set in Rome where Jack McCall is living with his seven-year-old daughter. He is trying to overcome the suicide of his much-loved beautiful wife.

Encouraged, but against his own wishes, he returns to his home in South Carolina. He is reunited with his family - characters all. He also links up with two school friends who relive the past in their search for a classmate and Vietnam protester. True to Conroy style, it has all the elements of wit, sarcasm, humour and sadness. A shocking account of the Holocaust is brilliantly incorporated.