At a Rolling Stones concert in a London park in 1967, “young women in cut-off jeans revel in the easy power of beauty.” Off duty and with friends, Detective Cathal Breen watches the euphoric crowd and worries that wherever they see “peace and transcendence,” he sees “the potential for crime and disaster.”

The girl I was then rises in memory, walking along this same beach. It is the winter of 1967, late November. Today, more than five decades after that other walk on this same beach, I re-enter that young, inexperienced self. She is my foundation, and I am her future version; the same soul inhabits us both.

Indeed, it could be argued that this spiritual practice, hard though it may be, is the most reliable kind of political action. It depends on nothing outside our control, but only on the considerable resources we have within. To learn not to doubt the power of these resources is a worthwhile effort. Mastering this skill frees us. No longer feeling compelled to concern ourselves with the external forces that impinge on us. Thus we can face the challenge issued decades ago by Mahatma Gandhi. As we increasingly observe how outer reality mirrors what lies within, we can attend to the essential task of living the change we hope to see in the world.

Like many contemporary mystery writers, Camilleri spices his work with trenchant political and social commentary, which often makes for hilarious reading.

“Fiction,” says Neil Gaiman, “is the lie that tells the truth.” Brian McGilloway’s latest novel exemplifies that truth. Set in a roughly contemporary time, it is filled with references to lies and truth, trust and betrayal, as it portrays the long shadows cast by the Troubles. Not only those who were involved are affected; indeed, one of the characters in this novel was not even born when under IRA orders, three people carried out a deed that changed the courses of their lives and has haunted them ever since.

Aficionados of aromatherapy make many claims as to the virtues of this essential oil, which is distilled from the yellow flowers of a tropical tree. Considered beneficial for the skin, it also calms anxiety and depression, and functions as an aphrodisiac. These days I rarely apply perfume, but it’s a lovely feeling to open a rich vein of youthful memories by simply uncapping the bottle.

In her classroom in London, the teenage Ada, child of a Greek father and a Turkish mother from the conflicted island of Cyprus, wonders whether it is “possible to inherit something as intangible and immeasurable as sorrow.” Exiled from the warm Mediterranean climate, her widowed father tips a fig tree into a trench and buries it to ensure it survives the winter. The tree knows that “everything is interconnected…loneliness is a human invention.” The loneliness suffered by Ada and her dad after her mother’s death isolates them both, alienating them from one another.