Our reviewers pick the books – old and new – that have amused and provoked, consoled and beguiled, terrified and inspired them so far this year

CHRIS PATTEN
Ben Fergusson’s An Honest Man (Abacus, £8.99; Tablet price £8.09) is set in Berlin at one of the most dramatic moments in modern European history, with the wall that divided not only the city but East and West about to fall. Fergusson is outstandingly good whether writing about loyalty, family ties, love or identity. Read this in the cheerful knowledge that there are at least two others just as good by Fergusson, exploring similar themes.

ANNE CHISHOLM
For the ultimate spy story, seize Ben Macintyre’s Agent Sonya (Penguin, £8.99; Tablet price £8.09). From London to Shanghai, Switzerland to Oxfordshire, the attractive, intelligent heroine outsmarts colleagues and enemies alike to become one of Soviet military intelligence’s greatest assets during the 1930s and ’40s. Her traces can be found in novels by William Boyd and John Le Carré; but this book is the real thing.