★★★★★ Paul Pickering is the natural heir to Grahame Green and Evelyn Waugh. In Lucy, his latest novel, he sets the scene with a burning man running naked through the rubble of Berlin on the last day of WWII. What follows is a thoroughly engrossing read.All of the key elements we have come to expect are here to relish once more – bewildered central characters adrift in danger-filled locations, cultural clashes and political scheming, religious discord, brutal murders, dark personal secrets, and mysterious love interests.This is a tense, complex, darkly humorous, and ultimately thought-provoking story, with a strong sense of both time and place, and an intriguing cast of multi-national characters, who are not all they may seem.