When Elizabeth Price engages private detective Roland ''Orlando'' Gibbons to find out the truth about her husband''s suspected affair, she unwittingly sets off a chain of correspondence that reunites four formerly close-knit couples. They all live just a few suburban streets away from each other; they are all still married; so how - and why - did they become so estranged? In a series of letters - from love notes to condolence messages (the latter one arriving some years late) - each protagonist is far more self-revealing than they would ever be in person. The result is an uproarious and poignant portrait of four marriages, and a story about how little we know those we think we know best.

Nigel Williams'' new novel of suburban intrigue and late-flowering lust (and love) Unfaithfully Yours heralds the return of one of the country''s finest comic writers, in peak condition: all hail Nigel Williams, chronicler of England''s sleepy suburbs, where all is not quite as cricket as it seems . . .