My second novel, entitled Any Human Face and set in contemporary Rome, was published by Picador in May 2010. Part thriller, part love story, the novel describes what happens when Andrew Caruso, a middle-aged bookseller, decides to put on an exhibition of old photographs from what appear to be police files, found among the possessions of his dead ex-lover, Michel. Caruso finds himself in a world where kidnap, subterfuge and even murder are the norm; a world of criminal intrigue in which no one is safe, or above suspicion. The Guardian called the novel ‘a sophisticated literary thriller’ full of ‘atmosphere and psychological insight’. For the Daily Telegraph, Any Human Face is ‘a slow-burning, beautifully written crime story that brings to life the Rome that tourists don’t see – luckily for them.’ The paperback edition came out in November 2011.
My debut novel, Little Monsters, capturing the emotions of a damaged teenage girl in post WW2 England and of the woman she becomes, was published by Picador in March 2008. Good Housekeeping selected it as one of its Seven Great Reads for April, calling it a ‘haunting novel’, while for John Harding, of the Daily Mail, it’s ‘beautifully written and crafted, and more compelling than many thrillers.’
Both Any Human Face and Little Monsters form part of a sequence of novels set, for the most part, in modern Italy and dealing, among other things, with the uses, and misuses, of power.
In 2004, my novel A Winter’s Child was shortlisted for the Lichfield Prize. Beryl Bainbridge, one of the judges, commented: “Charles Lambert is a seriously good writer, one deserving of encouragement and recognition.”
