Not that anyone could lay that accusation against the previous books by Benjamin Wood, a British novelist who deserves more attention than he has had.

Charlie is determined to overcome all obstacles to make it as an architect, and such is his practicality and willingness to learn, that we suspect he will. In the summer of 1952, Joyce and Charlie Savigear are waiting on a railway platform in the quiet English countryside. Arthur, a former borstal boy made good, sees potential in the siblings whose background resembles his own. Siblings Joyce and Charlie Savigear are 'rescued' from their Borstal sentences by married architects Arthur and Florence Mayhood, who run their architectural practice from a Surrey farm, which they plan to be self-sufficient - and they also seek a couple of apprentices to work with them, both on the farm and in their architectural practice.

The atmosphere of 1950s Britain is well evoked – all Woodbines and pints of mild – and the complicated relationship between the Mayhoods and the Savigears is nicely developed and affecting, with one especially sharp moment when Arthur looks afresh at the troubled Savigears “as though he’d recognised a basic failure in his sums”. What, it asks, are the opportunities available to somoen who wants to leap clear of their wrong beginnings, when everything that hurts has already been cut?

It's the summer of 1952 and she and her younger brother Charlie have just been released from borstal. With its themes of fatalism and revenge, The Young Accomplicehas already been compared to Thomas Hardy novels and there are echoes of Tess of the d’Urbervilles in the story of a vulnerable young woman whose past catches up with her. Wood, who excels at creating tense enclosed environments, gives the Mayhoods and the Savigears the complexity of real people by understanding that character is illuminated in relation to others .

The truth is revealed sparingly, until we suddenly find ourselves no longer reading a psychological thriller but an action thriller, reminiscent of old British films.

Polishing the counters so her face reflected in the brass and sweeping floors at closing time until the boss said she could leave. Arthur is hampered by his accent and his past; Florence by the condescension of her father and her male colleagues.In due course, Joyce finds out, and Benjamin Wood’s latest novel, The Young Accomplice, is set in motion by the choice she makes.

Everything appears to be going well for the two youngsters at the farm, both with the architectural drawing and the farm-work, although Joyce has some clashes with the farm manager, Hollis. He lay back with his throat bared while the barber whipped the soap, and didn't think about the razor. The farm’s atmosphere is teacherly: “If every person on this earth was born with just two things, they’d never have to struggle. Rather, it subtly interrogates the “saviour story” paradigm, and from early on, the flaws associated with benevolent gestures are flagged — “grand gestures of charity … were only meant to glorify the giver”, Arthur Mayhood observes.All too convincing in his flabby drabness (“Sweaty faced and hairy at the chest and belly”), he is always there, wherever Joyce goes, darkening doorways and haunting hedgerows. However, I was disappointed when Joyce, the 'young accomplice' of the title, disappeared from the story well before the end, leaving just her younger brother Charlie with the Mayhoods - and a discovery that shocks all the characters. Goodreads app swallowed my almost finished review today, I’ll have a rest and see if I can muster up the strength to redo it. His third book A Station on the Path to Somewhere Better (2018) was shortlisted for the European Union Prize for Literature and the CWA Gold Dagger Award.