Book Review: Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

Well! This is a delight, isn't it? It's almost impossible to describe without giving away the plot. An unreliable narrator, trapped - perhaps - in a labyrinth which may (or may not) be a deeper metaphor for something else.

It's confusing - but then, it is a story about confusion. It is magical - without being beholden to the lore of magick in the same way "Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell" was. It has an air of magical realism with a decidedly pedestrian conclusion.

It asks us an interesting question - how do you decided who to trust when you're not sure you can trust yourself? There's shades of the film "Memento" in here, along with a dozen other more high-brow literary allusions, I'm sure.

Not quite "weird fiction" and not quite a whodunnit - it is a fascinating mystery about liminal spaces.