Ribstone Pippins, by Helen Wykham (Marion Boyars, £9.95 in UK)

Young Helen is a knowing upper-middle-class gel with a mother given to collecting husbands and a sister possibly heading the …

Young Helen is a knowing upper-middle-class gel with a mother given to collecting husbands and a sister possibly heading the same way. Meanwhile Helen is lamenting her doomed love affair with another schoolgirl. This is a brisk, snappy march through the social scene as inhabited by an unpleasant group of semi-privileged Dublin snobs. Of course Helen is wise and sarcastic beyond her years and it is all frightfully crisp. But do not be fooled, you have not wandered into an Irish version of the world of P.G. Wodehouse. Wykham's arch little work is an unpleasant, at times sinister, excursion into the vicious ways in which some choose to feed off the emotions of other. Has its moments, but I found this a cold, nasty, score-settling yarn.

By Eileen Battersby