FICTION HARDBACKS
Last
weekWeeks in
top 101
The Locked Room
Elly Griffiths
(Quercus £20)
Dr Ruth Galloway’s hunt for a killer is
disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic
(6,130)—12
The Man Who Died Twice/Richard Osman
(Viking £18.99) Stolen diamonds worth £20 million
cause chaos for the Thursday Murder Club (3,985)2213
The Leviathan/Rosie Andrews
(Raven £14.99) A servant to a widowed father felled
by a stroke faces charges of witchcraft (3,945)—14
The Maid/Nita Prose
(HarperCollins £14.99) A hotel maid discovers an
infamous and wealthy guest dead in his bed (2,595)335
Take Your Breath Away/Linwood Barclay
(HQ £20) Six years after his wife disappeared, a man
has his new life shattered by surprising news (2,150)—16
The Twyford Code/Janice Hallett
(Viper £14.99) A recently released prisoner examines
a mystery that has haunted him for decades (2,090)447
Diamond/Jessie Keane
(Hodder £14.99) Sparks fly between a feared gangland
queen and the youngest son of a wealthy family (1,820)—18
Love Marriage/Monica Ali
(Virago £18.99) A bride-to-be reviews her assumptions
regarding what marriage is and can be (1,765)—19
To Paradise/Hanya Yanagihara
(Picador £20) A novel in three parts, spanning three
centuries, set in three versions of America (1,760)5410
Pandora/Susan Stokes-Chapman
(Harvill Secker £14.99) An aspiring jewellery artist
unravels the secrets of a mysterious Greek vase (1,630)12FICTION PAPERBACKS
Last
weekWeeks
in top 101
It Ends With Us
Colleen Hoover
(Simon & Schuster £8.99)
A first love’s reappearance threatens
a woman’s present relationship
(11,180)2232
1979 /Val McDermid
(Sphere £8.99) A reporter’s drive to expose Scotland’s
criminal underbelly creates enemies (10,925)—13
The Thursday Murder Club/Richard Osman
(Penguin £8.99) Four friends in a retirement village
team up to solve a murder on their doorstep (9,240)5394
Rabbit Hole/Mark Billingham
(Sphere £8.99) A police officer probes a murder on
a psychiatric ward where she is a patient (9,045)135
Ugly Love/Colleen Hoover
(Simon & Schuster £8.99) The relationship between
“friends with benefits” turns complicated (8,175)736
21st Birthday/James Patterson and Maxine Paetro
(Penguin £8.99) Sergeant Lindsay Boxer vows to
protect a young woman from a serial killer (8,060)—17
The City of Tears/Kate Mosse
(Pan £8.99) A royal wedding could bring peace after
years of war; sequel to The Burning Chambers (7,960)338
A Wedding in the Country/Katie Fforde
(Penguin £8.99) A woman enjoys the exhilaration and
freedom London offers in the Swinging Sixties (6,590)429
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo/Taylor Jenkins
Reid (Simon & Schuster £8.99) An ageing Hollywood
icon reflects on her relentless rise to the top (6,560)10 1510
The Sanatorium/Sarah Pearse
(Corgi £8.99) A murder mystery set in an imposing,
isolated hotel high in the Swiss Alps (6,455)66CHILDREN'S
1
Last
week
—
Weeks
in top 10
1This Woven Kingdom
Tahereh Mafi
(Electric Monkey £12.99)
A servant girl is the
long-lost heir to an
ancient kingdom
(13,575)2
Last
week
2
Weeks
in top 10
3Diary of a Wimpy Kid:
The Deep End
Jeff Kinney
(Puffin £6.99)
The Heffleys’ camping
trip descends into a
disaster (3,660)3
Last
week
—
Weeks
in top 10
1Loki: A Bad God’s Guide
to Being Good
Louie Stowell
(Walker £7.99)
Loki is banished to live
on Earth as a schoolboy
(3,510)4
Last
week
1
Weeks
in top 10
34They Both Die at the End
Adam Silvera
(Simon & Schuster £7.99)
Two teenage boys are
told they have only one
day left to live
(3,420)5
Last
week
3
Weeks
in top 10
15Diary of a Wimpy Kid:
Big Shot
Jeff Kinney
(Puffin £12.99)
Greg unexpectedly lands
a spot on a basketball
team (3,150)but also to the global business
which had brought them to
England in the first place”.
It didn’t help that the family
succumbed to divisions David
had warned against, with Elias
starting a rival company, ED
Sassoon, while Abdallah (later
Albert) was left holding the
reigns of the original firm.
Sir Victor Sassoon, Elias’s
ebullient grandson, took over
the upstart company in 1924,
ushering in an era of playboy
decadence and hyperactive
international travel. A keen
photographer, he was never
happier than when snapping
beautiful nude women and
was rumoured to have had
affairs with Marlene Dietrich
and Paulette Goddard.
After moving headquarters
from India to China, he made
a fortune in Shanghai before
disaster struck and he lost
everything with the
Communist takeover in 1949.
By then there was no Sassoon
running David Sassoon and
Co, which limped along in
London before its eventual
sale for a paltry £2 million in- The 150-year-old
Sassoon business was over.
Any story about a
fantastically successful Jewish
enterprise is likely to be
poisoned by antisemitism,
and the Sassoons’ experience
was no exception. They had
in particular to contend with
the English aristocracy’s
abhorrence of anything
resembling work or requiring
intellect, an attitude
exemplified by the Countess
of Warwick, who looked
askance at two of David’s
sons, Reuben and Arthur,
joining the fashionable
Marlborough House set
around the future Edward VII.
“We resented the
introduction of the Jews into
the social set of the Prince of
Wales, not because we disliked
them,” she recalled, “but
because they had brains and
understood finance. As a
class we did not like brains.
As for money, our onlyunderstanding of it lay in the
spending, not the making of
it.” This toxic antisemitism
stalked the Sassoons.
Although the business-
heavy narrative can be
demanding — there are just
shy of 100 characters in the
family tree — the reader is
well rewarded with some
pitch-perfect cameos. Take
Rachel Sassoon, who became
the first woman to edit a
national newspaper in Britain
(The Observer), before going
one better and buying and
editing The Sunday Times in- Then there was Sir
Philip Sassoon, an MP,
minister, socialite and
chairman of the National
Gallery. And, of course, the
Great War poet Siegfried
Sassoon, an anti-Sassoon
Sassoon who told Robert
Graves he despised the family’s
“dirty trading” in the East.
Ultimately the Sassoon
empire was undone by
complacency, family
competition, the quest
for social acceptance and
lousy tax planning. But what
a scintillating show it was
while it lasted, as this vivid
and richly researched
book reveals. c
Sir Victor
ushered in an
era of playboy
decadence
pleasure as a series of
Sassoons scaled the heights of
English society and became
friends of royalty while taking
their eye off the commercial
ball. Failure to diversify away
from opium as moves to
outlaw the trade gathered
pace also proved fatal.
The price of all the toadying
to the toffs did not come cheap.
It required not only “the loss of
ties to an old faith or old home,
PAPERBACK
OF THE WEEK
The Waiter
by Ajay Chowdhury
Vintage £7.99In this superb
first novel,
Kamil
Rahman, a
disgraced
detective,
has just
arrived in
London from India. When
his boss’s oldest friend is
murdered at a glitzy party,
Rahman can’t resist
launching his own
investigation — and risking
deportation. Chowdhury
paces this outstanding
debut like an old hand.
Joan SmithST DIGITAL
FOR MORE PICKS, AND OUR
CHOICE OF THE BEST OF 2022,
GO TO THESUNDAYTIMES.
CO.UK/CULTURE
13 February 2022 25