The Alphonse Courrier Affair by Marta Morazzoni, translated by Emma Rose (Harvill, £6.99 in UK)

Blandly handsome, confident, apparently invincible, Alphonse Courrier owns a hardware shop in a rural French village. His life is good, or so he thinks. Married to a silent, bloodless beauty who cooks brilliantly, maintains the house in perfection and expects little in the way of emotional sustenance, he is free to engage in sexual passion with an ugly spinster who also asks for nothing. Morazzoni, an Italian, is a sophisticated writer and this sharp, shrewd little novel is a chillingly skilful performance. Much of its impact lies in the barbed irony and narrative tone of once juicy gossip, recalled at leisure, and intelligently conveyed throughout Rose's translation. A variation of Madame Bovary with the frustration replaced by complacency and eventual despair.