Yellow Dog by Martin Amis review – Bill Nighy has a ball

From spoof monarch to porn tycoon, the actor narrator goes to town on the larger-than-life characters in this Booker-nominated satire

Exit Party by Emily St John Mandel review – alternate visions of post-crisis America

Is the price of stability necessarily the loss of freedom? Two possible future worlds are linked in the new novel from the author of Station Eleven

Manhunter review – Michael Mann serves up a bold and queasy starter to the serial killer spectacle

Before Anthony Hopkins’ Dr Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs, Brian Cox played a cannibalistic killer in Mann’s pioneering Red Dragon adaptation

The Complex by Karan Mahajan review – a superb family saga set in Delhi

At once a grand sweep through history and a domestic novel of petty squabbles, this tale of corruption and betrayal is packed with drama

Britain’s Slave Traders by William A Pettigrew review – the inconvenient truth

This revelatory history shows just how deeply embedded slavery is in the foundations of modern Britain

Swan Song by Charles Spencer review – a furious exercise in score-settling by Diana’s brother

Amid genuinely touching passages about his sister, the earl can’t help but put himself and his grievances centre stage

Autumn by Kate Mosse review – tender reflections on time and place

The author of Labyrinth on the turning of the seasons and the lore and landscape of her beloved Sussex

Doom Painting by AK Blakemore review – a dazzling epic of the Peasants’ Revolt

This recklessly ambitious doorstopper follows the 16 days of England’s medieval uprising from a vast array of viewpoints, and in startlingly rich prose

Sense and Sensibility review – Daisy Edgar-Jones leads sober-minded next-gen do-over of Austen romcom

With Edgar-Jones and Esmé Creed-Miles as the Dashwood sisters, this fresh take on a beloved classic is not to be confused with Ang Lee’s

The Recovery House by Derek Owusu review – a uniquely honest view of mental health

Writing from firsthand experience, the author offers an affecting meditation on art, mental fragility and faith

The American Way of Killing by Malcolm Gladwell review – wide of the mark

Gladwell’s highly readable investigation into US gun culture fails to engage with the bigger questions

The Turn of the Screw review – Henry James’s classic ghost story with added jump scares

This slick production of Morgan Lloyd Malcolm’s adaptation is hampered by its own cleverness

Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky review – the bell tolls for Patrick Hamilton’s lost Londoners

The sequence of richly atmospheric novels about lonely souls in the capital is condensed into an engrossing play that could be more unsettling

Children’s and teens roundup – the best new picture books and novels

A tiger’s tale; the young Henry VIII; a fantasy follow‑up from Katherine Rundell; small-town secrets; ghosts galore and more

No Land to Stand On by Mahmoud Khalil review – a searing account of political imprisonment

The Palestinian Columbia student snatched by ICE writes about his Kafkaesque ordeal with a quiet fury