Over here, Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code (Corgi) was this year's Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time: a ripping esoteric thriller greedily consumed on public transport systems up and down the country. The Booker, meanwhile, had three of the year's strongest novels on its shortlist: David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas (Sceptre), which combined daring form with gripping narrative; Colm TÛibÌn's The Master (Picador), which gave luminous voice to the novelist Henry James; and Alan Hollinghurst's worthy winner The Line Of Beauty (Picador). One novel sadly overlooked, however, was Justin Cartwright's The Promise Of Happiness (Bloomsbury) - a fabulously readable saga full of penetrating insights into the nature of family and growing old.
