NO GOOD BROTHER

Tyler Keevil (Borough Press)

Currently employed as a Cardiff University lecturer, Tyler Keevil has lived in Wales for several years but continues to set his fiction in and around his native Vancouver – including No Good Brother, his latest novel and one which highlights his talents for drawing affecting, rounded characters and conjuring engagingly screwball storylines. Two brothers – Tim, a semi-respectable everyman working on a fishing boat, and trouble magnet Jake – contrive to steal a prize horse, with the promise of financial reward from some smalltime gangsters, and transport it down the Pacific northwest coastline. Their hairbrained schemes are variously amateurish, desperate and inspired; their conversational dialogue crackles with the knowing bluntness of so many sibling relationships. No Good Brother seems unsure if it wants to be a knockabout comedy or emotional road novel, yet does both very well. (NG)

Price: £12.99. Info: www.harpercollins.co.uk