Maggie Hartford looks at recent editions in paperback

**The Forger - Paul Watkins (Faber, 9.99)

As the Germans converge on Paris in 1940, David Halifax, a young American art student, is press-ganged by the Resistance into forging great paintings, to keep them from Nazi hands. This taut thrilling tale grabs the reader by the throat with an astonishing intensity, not releasing the grip until the final page. Educated at the Dragon School, Eton and Yale, Watkins shows himself to be a natural story-teller endowed with a peculiarly masculine tenderness and a restless curiosity.

**East of the Mountains - David Guterson (Bloomsbury, 6.99)

If you enjoyed Guterson's best-selling Snow Falling on Cedars, be warned that this one is very different. The quiet story-telling is still there, as is the evocation of wild landscape, but this time the plot has fewer clever twists to keep the pages turning. Dr Ben Givens, a widower in his early seventies, is suffering from terminal cancer and when he leaves his home in Seattle with his hunting dogs and his Winchester he does not intend to return. As he journeys, he meditates on dying and killing, and looks back on his life, from his birthplace in the Washington State apple orchards to the mountains of Second World War Italy.

**The King and the Gentleman - Derek Wilson (Pimlico, 12.50)

The King in question is Charles I and the Gentleman Oliver Cromwell. Both were possessed by a deep sense of divine mission, both were deeply religious, and both immovably stubborn. This dual biography looks at their lives in parallel, exploring their family backgrounds, their religious beliefs, their mentors and responsibilities.

**The Flower Boy - Karen Roberts (Phoenix, 6.99)

This touching first novel from a Sri Lankan author tells, through the eyes of mischievous Ceylonese servant boy Chandi, of the doomed relationship between an English and Ceylonese family in 1930s Ceylon. Lizzie Buckwater, the youngest daughter of John and Elsie Buckwater, is born into a beautiful home nestled in the lush hillside tea estates. Chandi, four, is determined that the new English baby will be his best friend, and so it is. When Elsie deserts her family to return to England, Chandi and Lizzie are left in peace to play and John Buckwater's relationship with Chandi's mother Premawathi moves on to a different level.

To See You Again - Betty Schimmel with Joyce Gabriel (Pocket Books, 6.99)

This is the true story of childhood sweethearts Betty and Richie, in love in pre-war Budapest, swimming in the Danube and going to dances. Betty and her family manage to survive the Mathausen concentration camp and afterwards, Betty finds evidence that Richie perished in the camps. After much grieving, she builds a new life with fellow concentration camp survivor Otto. They marry on the condition that he will let her go if Richie ever returns - and he does, 33 years later.

24 Karat Schmooze - Marc Blake (Flame, 12)

Blake weaves together the lives of six Londoners in this action-packed tale of crime, conmen and cocaine. Rox Matheson arrives in the big city keen to retrieve her losses from a scam run by Davey Kayman. She is helped by Davey's driver Reece and their simmering romance evolves as a sub-plot throughout. The story is well- paced and the characters nicely coloured in but it reaches the gripping climax it threatens. Well worth a read but Blake has probably written better.