Set in 1950s London, Louise Hare’s compelling This Lovely City (HQ, £8.99; Tablet price £8.09) evokes the early prejudice endured by the Windrush generation. Lawrie Matthews works as a postman by day and plays clarinet at night. He’s sweet on Evie, the girl next door, another outsider. Evie never knew her Sierra Leonean father and was brought up by her embittered, white mother. When Lawrie finds the corpse of a black baby in the pond on Clapham Common, the Jamaican community comes under scrutiny. Hare explores a tumultuous period to mesmerising effect.