Safe Return Doubtful

This is a diversion of the best sort, a really great bit of story-telling.
At the heart of the novel are a trio of colourful characters; a magician called Ronnie Deane, stage name Pablo, after a parrot he had as a childhood pet, his partner and assistant Evie, and their friend and boss, Jack Robinson, who compères their magic show on Brighton pier. This is 1959, but there are 3 timelines that make up the book; the early years of the war when Ronnie was evacuated to Oxfordshire, and later in the book, 2009, with the reader gradually discovering the puzzle of what happened in the previosu 50 years.
The plot is a bit thin, but it still manages to create tension and pull off an appropriate surprise in its final pages. The richness though is in Swift’s skill in making what seem ordinary lives fascinating; his observations of identity and destiny are his forte, just how we become who we are and why we make the choices we do.