ACTS OF GOD

An ancient chambers in Lincoln's Inn has defended God for seventeen centuries. This winter, it hired a grieving barrister.

When her sister is killed in an earthquake, and the insurers decline the claim in four words, an act of God, Maryam Asfour writes forty-one furious pages addressed to no one. Then two letters arrive in the same handwriting: one from the Office of Divine Counsel, an unlisted firm that has represented "the Client" since the fourth century, and one from the chambers across the square, which claims to have been prosecuting him just as long.

Maryam joins the defence for a reason she never says aloud: she wants discovery on God.

Her induction is an archive. The Book of Job, kept as a court record. Baghdad, 833, where reformers tried to amend the Client's attributes and built an inquisition. Strasbourg, 1349, where the firm's oldest strategy walked out of its hands. Lisbon, 1755, where engineers filed the only defence that ever reduced the docket. A folder for the twentieth century that contains a single sheet.

And a seventh file, in a drawer she has been told she would want to open first, that she is saving for last.

A novel about the oldest case in the world, the two doors grief can walk through, and what is left to do when the explanation column runs empty.

For readers of Piranesi and Small Things Like These.