Destiny by Tim Parks (Vintage, £6.99 in UK)

Christopher Burton is an English journalist-cum-cultural commentator with specialist knowledge of Italy, whose career has been, he concedes, largely shaped by his operatic Italian wife. The fact their messy marriage has endured their personality clashes, multiple betrayals and general unhappiness is due to their mentally-ill adult son. However, as this wonderful novel opens, that reason has now died with the young man's suicide. Tim Parks, Booker short-listed for Europa in 1997, has been exploring the narrative voice throughout his 10 novels to date and has increasingly shown himself to have mastered the frenetic yet chillingly well observed interior monologue. While Burton, who is writing a book on Italy, absorbs the reality of his son's death, he also finds time to inspect his rival's book, ponder his wife's affair with its author, fret about his ongoing constipation and oh yes, set up an interview with a former and now disgraced Italian prime minister. Brilliantly paced, often hilarious, yet very sad, Destiny offers a complete portrait of how one man's mind works. It also resounds with vivid set pieces, mostly featuring Burton's determined wife Mara, a miracle of characterisation, who has long reduced her husband to the role of passive observer.