Who Is Mr Satoshi?, By Jonathan Lee

Jonathan Lee's debut takes us from the grey of Bristol to the sparkle of Tokyo (with its "million-coloured veinwork" and it's glittering skyscrapers that "marshalled across the skyline").

It begins with the death of the narrator's mother, an event which jolts Foss - a once prolific photographer whose life unravelled when his wife died - out of his unhealthy solitude.

He sets off to track down his mother's first sweetheart - Mr Satoshi - though the only clues he has to the man's identity lie in a stash of old love letters, through which he begins to disinter his mother's younger self and her lover's passion.

The trip leads him back to himself, and to renewal. A quietly masterful first novel, that maps the emotional trajectories of loss, despair, love and redemption.