Although Jonathan Coe achieved acclaim in the 1990s with a series of expansive, bitter-sweet novels, his more recent output has been of a gloomier vein, and less enthusiastically received. With this in mind, the publishers promise that Expo 58 is a return “to the acidic humour of  What a Carve Up! and The Rotters’ Club”.Set between suburban south London and the 1958 World Fair in Brussels, it’s the story of Thomas Foley, a 32-year-old, married civil servant unexpectedly sent to cover an event mired in Cold War chicanery. Foley is a kind of everyman character caught up in events beyond his control – think Arthur Dent or William Boot – who becomes spellbound by his new cosmopolitan world and its international players. He is allured first by Anneke, a