The Welsh Girl
by Peter Ho Davies
Sceptre, HK$115
In the past year Peter Ho Davies' The Welsh Girl has been long-listed for the Man Booker Prize and selected as one of Richard and Judy's 'Big Reads' for 2008. Davies' intricate plot mixes politics great and small. Captain Rotheram, a half-German, half-Jewish refugee, is sent to interview a man called Rudolph Hess in Wales. Rotheram's mission is to discover whether Hess, who flew to Britain in 1941, is mad, an amnesiac or just a very good actor. In a nearby Snowdonian village, Esther Evans is conducting a relationship with an Englishman ('a Londoner!'), a dangerous liaison she keeps secret from her fiercely nationalistic father. Lastly, in the neighbouring prison camp, a young German soldier is tortured by thoughts of Germany's recent defeat. That Davies (a Granta Best Young Novelist in 2003) unites all the strands elegantly will surprise no one familiar with either of his short-story collections: his themes may be grand (national identity, redemption, love, lies and forgiveness) but they are always easy on the eye. What makes his impressive first novel a joy to read are the lyrical touches in his prose and the main players themselves, who are vividly drawn, credible and complex.