The Village, by David Mamet (Faber, £6.99 in UK)

Mamet has written several of the most explosively powerful plays staged during the past 20 years. His characters converse in living dialogue that ricochets off the walls. Perhaps this explains that when he decided to write a novel, most of the characters in it spend more time talking to themselves than to anyone else. These interior monologues are conducted in a slow, formal prose light years removed from anything Mamet has written for the stage. Set in a remote Vermont village, again well removed from his usual city haunts, the narrative is essentially a cliched study of smalltown life. The characters move in a perpetual slow motion, while also carefully watching each other. Its moments of sly, wacky humour and obvious poise ultimately fail to elevate it beyond being more than a clever, satirical and heavy-handed wander through the minds of sketchily-drawn caricatures.