The Late Hector Kipling

This laugh-out-loud, darkly intelligent debut suggests that Thewlis might meet with considerable success should he decide to quit acting and take up the pen full-time. London artist Hector Kipling paints huge canvases dominated by a single head. He's doing well, but he's not nearly as famous as his best friend, conceptualist Lenny Snook. Eaten up by jealousy, Hector believes that Lenny has made his fortune with stolen ideas. As Hector struggles to cope with an absent girlfriend, his parents' insane expenditures and a vandal attacking his most valuable painting, things begin to go very wrong indeed. Readers who have mourned the end of Sue Townsend's wonderful, long-running Adrian Mole series will find solace of a sort here, as will anyone who enjoys a thought-provoking skewering of modern art by a knowledgeable writer and an inescapably doomed but appealing hero. (Nov.)