In honor of Queen Elizabeth II and the kingdom she leaves behind, this column is an all-British affair. These books reflect the diversity of its voices and stories—from the aspirations of South Asian Londoners to Scotland’s shameful response to the AIDS crisis in 1989, to the distinctly British humor of the Thursday Murder Club. If you watched the Queen’s funeral, you couldn’t miss the church bells that are such an integral part of Dorothy Sayers’s The Nine Tailors, tolling their message of mourning.
There’s a bit of royal reserve in Leila Syed, the high-achieving architect at the center of Next of Kin. Her people skills suffer in comparison to those of her younger sister, Yasmin, whom she raised when her parents died, sacrificing much while still a teenager. The composed, groomed exterior she’s perfected keeps other people at a distance, while Yasmin, looser and softer, draws them in. Beneath the mask, Leila is a devoted aunt to Yasmin’s toddler son, showering him with love and attention and picking up the slack when his parents are busy. But what happens when she volunteers to drive him to school one hectic morning sets an unthinkable tragedy in motion.
