In the Early Morning Rain.

The master has a new book out. It’s only another horseracing novel, but it is, in the style of his last, short (though this one, at 40,000 words is perhaps closer to a short novel than it is a novella). Like the last one too, it is a literary novel that happens to concern horseracing, and should not be confused with a conventional horseracing thriller.

Most people who work in horseracing can’t read, so it makes no difference to them. Where it will have an impact though, is with readers who are invested in traditional horseracing pulp-thrillers. For them -those types who might enjoy Dick, and perhaps even Merrick, Francis novels; and maybe even those of Lissa Oliver; and at a stretch too, I suppose, there will be a few who claim to enjoy the execrable fare served up by John Francome and Sir Anthony McCoy, the advice is: this is not for you.. You’re too thick. You’ll find the simple plot, and its sub-plot(s), too plausible and difficult to follow; the dialogue too recognisable as the way real people who actually speak to each other; and the settings too authentic. Besides which, you’ll constantly lose your place by having to lift your finger from the page to look up all the hard words.

That will do as far as a review is concerned for these pages. As a contributing columnist to these pages we must be careful not to puff up the works Robert Braithwaite too much, lest we end up looking like everyone else. Instead, to give you a taste of what it’s all about, we’ll post some reviews given by others, who stand independent of this august journal.