Arthur & George by Julian Barnes

The game's afoot! It could be a case for Sherlock Holmes

It just so happens that if you include the crime fiction he has published under the pseudonym Dan Kavanagh, plus a work of translation, Barnes's latest book takes his tally to 21. That's a lot in 25 years, but their sustained quality - whether fiction or non-fiction - means that there was never any danger of a bored marketing person sticking "His 21st book" on the cover of Arthur & George. Indeed, it's one of Barnes's best, a beautiful and engrossing work which brings together some classic Barnesian themes (love, identity), introduces some new ones (spirituality, guilt and innocence), and hangs them all on a real-life miscarriage of justice from 100 years ago that was always going to be a gift for the first writer to spot its potential for re-imagining.

The Arthur of the title is Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes. He is a troubled figure, indifferent to the fame his books have brought him, and a man who suffers in love. He finds solace in cricket, success at which matters much more to him than literary success. The Arthur passages are biography in the sense that we learn much about his life, and are presented with a vivid psychological study that has the absolute ring of truth. But it's not biography in the sense that neither he nor George Edalji - the Midlands solicitor whose cause is taken up by Arthur - come across as anything other than characters invented by Barnes.

We are in a late-19th century world of fob chains and propelling pencils, of order, duty, and propriety. But dark forces are at work, and the manner in which George becomes a victim of them is all the more shocking for the elegance and restraint of Barnes's narrative voice, echoing as it does the formality of prose of the period. The legal drama at the book's heart is a showcase for Barnes's effortless-seeming literary powers. It's like seeing Henry James turned loose on The Shawshank Redemption.

If the book has a weakness, it is in somewhat skating over Arthur's decision to involve himself in George's case at a time when he was inundated with requests from the public to apply Holmes-style detective skills to their predicaments. But George's plight does have special characteristics, not least his background as the son of a Parsee Indian, who is also a vicar, and a Scottish mother.

So varied is Barnes's output that it's wrong to describe anything he does as a departure. But Arthur & George does feel different. For a start, France doesn't come into it (Dreyfus apart), and it will be interesting to see how his French fan base reacts. It's very English, in fact. What is consistent is Barnes's absolute sureness of touch, and the satisfaction that his readers are guaranteed.

Julian Barnes will be in conversation with 'IoS' literary editor Suzi Feay at Ways With Words (11.30am, Friday 15 July, £7.50). See box opposite for details.