Dan Rhodes was once named as one of the ‘best of young British novelists’ by Granta. But surely before long someone is going to come out and say he is one of their best novelists, period! Little Hands Clapping only confirms why his many fans keep raving about this über-talented, still rather young (38), author. There is something completely entrancing about his fabulist technique: a deceptively calm but always slightly askew narration; the most unexpected and original scenarios and events; and a mood that swings between the utmost levity and something much more sinister.

The opening chapters of this novel concern a live-in museum attendant whose attitude to his job might just redefine the meaning of nonchalance (let alone snack food). His is a museum devoted to the history of suicide, both famous instances and notable techniques. He frequently hears a bump in the night, which he never cares to investigate – only the beginning of some of the sometimes very wrong (certainly macabre) events that follow.

Rhodes is rather like one of the Brothers Grimm transposed to the twenty-first century – similarly, he offers moral tales that delight on every page. Definitely one of my very favourite contemporary writers.