ODYSSEY by Stephen Fry (Michael Joseph £25, 432pp)

Fry completes his retellings of the Greek myths with the story of Odysseus and his wanderings.

The familiar story borders on a chatty style, colored with slightly revisionist insights into the characters – Fry’s Menelaus, for example, is more winning than Homer’s (and Tennyson’s) wimp.

There are imaginative reconstructions of key scenes – Agamemnon’s death is a particular corker – and Fry sticks to Homer’s love of luxurious interiors – nothing Spartan about Helen’s palace in Sparta.

But the art, as always, belies the art, and Fry’s easy manner belies careful editing and research.

The Odyssey: Deaths and Luxury Interiors

BY ANOTHER NAME by Jodi Picoult (Michael Joseph £22, 544pp)

IN THIS time-slip novel, Picoult presents a daring theory about who really wrote Shakespeare’s plays.

Meet Emilia Bassano, a beautiful courtesan in Elizabethan London and a gifted playwright. But as a woman, she has no chance of getting her work done.

Meanwhile, in modern-day New York, a sexist critic has undermined playwright Melina Green’s confidence.

To beat the system, she gets a man to front her work, just like Emilia did centuries ago, and joins a stable of authors writing for a certain William Shakespeare.

He can’t write a line, but he has all the right connections.

Whether or not you believe Emilia wrote Hamlet, this is a story told with talent, imagination and spirited romance.

THE BLUE HOUR by Paula Hawkins (double day £22, 336pp)

I loved this art world set thriller with the Saltburn atmosphere in the stately home.

James Becker, a young working-class curator, is an expert on the late Vanessa Chapman, a glamorous boho painter with a complex love life.

She left her collection to the Lennoxes, a toxic, chic family with whom Becker has a romantic and professional relationship.

The discovery of a human bone in a Chapman sculpture sends Becker north to the Scottish island where Grace, Vanessa’s friend and companion, lives.

Here the mystery of the artist’s private life darkens as different bodies come into view.

Hawkins skillfully weaves a story about class and privilege and manages to maintain the tension until the end.