Finn Causley is the auctioneer. The owner of an auction house in a Victorian silk mill, Finn tells his story through the objects others have left behind: a Staffordshire figure in a bonnet, slightly chipped; a faded friendship band; a white pill bottle with an easy-grip screw cap. The lots trigger a flood of mis-remembered conversations, childhood ghosts and memories: memories of Margaret, his mother, who died in a car crash with someone else's watch in her pocket and a whiff of adultery in the air; of Hen, his wife, who suffers from St. Mary's Disease, a form of dementia that erases her memory whilst giving her a masked smile. and then there's Anna, who stole his heart when she appeared in a Kandinsky dress by a pool at midnight.The Auctioneer is about the sort of history "made by cheap useful objects; what's dusty on your sideboard, what's sticky at the back of your drawer."; An intricate, well-paced history that is as much about the things that happen off-camera as on. Told in several voices, this first novel circles around Finn's grief and confusion as he becomes increasingly obsessed with his past. Complex, multi-layered and assured, The Auctioneer explores the relationships between love, deceit and the junk that clutters our lives.--Jane Honey