The Loudness of Unsaid Things, by Hilde Hinton

With a mentally ill mother and a negligent father, Susie is what would today be called an at-risk child. But this is the 1960s and 70s and Susie is left to raise herself. Bright and lonely, we follow her story from the age of 7 to 17 as she tries to find her place in the world with few boundaries and little guidance. It is interspersed with the account of an older woman, Miss Kaye, who works at The Institute – a facility housing troubled young women. It becomes clear that Miss Kaye is a mature Susie, using her life experience to shepherd others through their damage. Hinton has drawn on her own life to paint a devastating picture of the effect mental illness can have on a family. Susie is a vibrant character, warm and reckless; Miss Kaye lives life on her own terms. We get no details of how the first became the second until the end, after Miss Kaye retires and a surprise visitor shines a few bars of light on intergenerational trauma.

Down Cemetery Road, by Mick Herron

When a house in her quiet Oxford street is blown up and a small child goes missing, frustrated housewife Sarah sticks her nose in and employs a private detective when the police seem uninterested. She then finds herself embroiled in a violent conspiracy involving an Ministry of Defence cover-up and rogue agents. Dark and twisty, this debut novel has some major plot flaws and really needed a couple more drafts to answer a few questions the editor should have asked, but Herron’s skill in character development is clear. Sarah is a compelling heroine, deep and complex, who must shake off her stultifying marriage and regain her true self in order to survive. Billed as a Zoe Boehm thriller, the PD’s ex-wife and partner makes only fleeting appearances until riding in to try to save the day towards the end. Written 20 years ago, the novel has been republished to cash in on the success of the Slow Horses franchise. It’s worth a read, if only to chart the writer’s progress.

The Studio, Apple TV+

After too many box office flops, head of Continental Studio Patty Leigh is replaced by her 2IC, film buff Matt Remick. His lofty artistic ambitions are immediately quashed by company overlord and dinosaur philistine Griffin Mill. In 10 short episodes of painful farce Matt navigates the commercial pressure to succeed and the vagaries of creatives, often tripping over his own fragile ego. Seth Rogan’s affectionate excoriation of Hollywood is in the style of The Office, excruciating and all too believable entertainment. It features an incredible array of directors and actors playing (often nasty) versions of themselves, including Martin Scorsese, Ron Howard, Olivia Wilde and Zoe Kravitz. They and the stellar cast all have far too much fun, especially in the last two very self-indulgent episodes.

An Ethical Guide to Murder, by Jenny Morris

In her mid-20s Thea discovers she can tell how long people have to live, just by touching them. The shocking discovery that her flatmate and best friend has less than a day left triggers a power to transfer life from one person to another. Ruth is a doctor and a thoroughly good person, surely she deserves to live more than most and definitely more than the idiot responsible for the head injury that will cause her death. But where do you draw the line? Thea starts writing an ethical guide to navigate her power; she needs rules, especially when old crush Sam is on a mission to punish the wicked and recruits her as chief executioner. This is a fascinating examination of ethical dilemmas and moral relativism, wrapped up in an entertaining tale with an ending that is inevitable but not at all predictable.

Theory & Practice, by Michelle de Kretser

This oddly-structured tale starts with a novel abandoned for autofiction and ends, abruptly, with an expat anecdote. A writer looks back to her postgraduate thesis on Virginia Woolf at a Melbourne University, while living in pre-gentrification St Kilda of the 1980s. The story touches on themes of class and colonialism, guilty feminism, child sexual abuse and fraught daughter-mother relationships, while skewering the petty politics of academia. There is a lot going on in a slim book that won this year’s Stella prize. Michelle de Kretser writes believable characters with clarity and a beautifully fluid style, but the auto fiction element makes for uncomfortable reading at times.

Conclave (2024), directed by Edward Berger

The Pope has died and the world’s Catholic cardinals are converging on the Vatican to vote for his successor, while myriad nuns are bussed in to feed and water them. The task of organising it all falls to Cardinal Lawrence, who must navigate the various factional interests and power plays to ensure a smooth transition. Ralph Fiennes, as Lawrence, makes great use of his furrowed brow as the cardinals undermine each other and a newcomer puts forward the proposition that Lawrence himself could be a contender. The strong supporting cast includes Stanley Tucci and John Lithgow as rival cardinals and Isabella Rossellini as a quietly influential nun. This timely film gives a fascinating insight into how the conclave possibly operates, using elements of mystery, thriller and humour to leaven the politics. It looks amazing, with clever use of colour; a deeply ironic and highly unlikely twist at the end highlights that this is indeed fiction, not documentary.

Not Another Love Song, by Julie Soto

Gwen is an orphan and a violin prodigy who is working her way up in the Manhattan Pops Orchestra. There she has gone unnoticed by first cello Xander Thorne, who is also part of a superstar classical rock group and a child of privilege. Their romance is enhanced by mad musical chemistry and complicated by major trust issues and family dramas. This is not a sequel to Soto’s previous novel Forget Me Not, although it does feature some of its characters, but it reads as though it was written earlier. It is marred by some very clunky language, particularly in the sex scenes, and plot twists that stretch credulity.