'The Beast in the Palace'

After a series of thoughtful stories set in the grim present, Tom Johnstone moves back in time to those glory days of empire so many people seem keen on. A modern academic - who happens to be a black woman - sets out to near some of the hidden history of Brighton Pavilion. She seeks out a certain Albert Anvil, who has a story to tell about an ancestor. Cue flashback narrative.

The historical part of the story concerns the creation of the pavilion gardens, and the work of a physically deformed young man called Caleb. Isolated by his unusual appearance, Caleb stumbles across an unlikely friend in the form of what he assumes to be a boy. In fact it's an escaped African woman who has been the victim of what we now call human traffickers.

The story combines carefully-detailed historical realism with a flight of bizarre and disturbing fantasy. We are introduced to the beast of the title, a deformed creature that embodies elements of the satirical cartoons the Prince Regent/George IV tried to suppress. I can't really reveal more than that. The nameless woman flees and is protected by Caleb Anvil, but not for long. Her fate, like that of a hapless giraffe imported for the grotesque monarch's pleasure, is sealed. The closing passages are especially powerful, an acknowledgement of how little one can accomplish in a time of oppression.

Last Stop Wellsbourne, though a story collection, seems to have elements of the 'state of England' novel. This is not surprising. A nation seriously divided - and quite possibly destined to disintegrate - offers rich pickings to a write of imaginative fiction.