Critically reviewing a populist genre novel requires a particular cribbing, a playing off against deep-seated transcendental notions of literature that tend to motivate pronouncements upon the relatively good and bad points.

One needs to co-opt some of the modish, culturally oriented, intellectualist and anti-canonical values, both to legitimise the project – assuming that is required – and to establish a contemporary frame of reference, if a somewhat convenient one. In asking the question ‘is the book worth reading?’, is the comparison to be made against whatever the ‘best’ literature has to offer, or against reading nothing at all?