This is a brilliant debut, both from Karim Miské and Sam Gordon, the very capable translator. The setting – “between the Lubavitch school complex, the Salafist prayer room and the evangelical church” in north-east Paris, home turf of the Charlie Hebdo and kosher supermarket killers – couldn’t be more topical. And Ahmed Taroudant, the novel’s main protagonist, is in some respects a typical French Arab – religiously non-observant, confused about his identity, haunted by the past and now set up to take the blame for murder. Immensely likable despite his neuroses, Ahmed aims “to lose himself by devouring the whole world in a single, uninterrupted story written by others”. The metaphor fits fundamentalists perfectly, but in Ahmed’s case it’s more literal: he’s a crime fiction fanatic who tries to buffer himself from reality with a wall of books.