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Andrew Nicoll, The Good Mayor

(4th Estate; 480pp paperback; $27.99)

Tibo Krovic is the Good Mayor of the title: an honest and upright man, admired and respected by the citizens of the peaceful haven of Dot, a little town in a forgotten part of the Baltic.

Indeed, the Mayor of Dot is universally known as “Good Tibo Krovic”. When faced with the everyday decisions of running the town, Tibo is more likely to do the “good thing”, which he discovers is not always the same as the “right thing”.

Tibo’s greatest struggle with good versus right occurs in his secret love for his secretary, the lovely, lonely — and married — Mrs Agathe Stopak. Tragedy has led to the deterioration of Agathe’s marriage, and while she and her husband continue to share a house their connection and love has long gone.

The story of the developing relationship between Tibo and Agathe is told through the ever-watchful eyes of Saint Walpurnia, the bearded virgin martyr, “whose heart-wrung pleas to Heaven for the gift of ugliness as a bolster to her chastity were answered with a miraculous generosity”.

Tibo's and Agathe’s tale does not take a smooth and predictable path. What might have been a straightforward romance novel deviates into unexpected twists with a touch of fantasy.

Interspersed with punctuation puns — the nearby town of Dash, the river Ampersand, the rivalry with neighbouring Umlaut — The Good Mayor could easily fall into twee and annoying territory. This is avoided by the gentle whimsicality and subtle humour of Andrew Nicoll’s storytelling.