Hawk half: brilliant. White half: less.

Two books plaited together — and only one of them was for me. The hawk half is extraordinary. The weighing, the bating, the raw sinew in the fridge, the way Mabel goes from being a thing that might kill her to a thing that plays with a rolled-up paper ball. I did not know that hawks played. I have since told about six people that hawks play.

The T. H. White half I could take less of. It's well done and I understand why it is there, that she is looking for somebody who got it wrong so she can see the shape of getting it wrong. But every time it cut back to him I felt the train slowing down.

Her father's death is handled with almost no ceremony, which is what makes it land. There's a passage about him waiting hours to photograph one thing, and the patience being the job, and she comes back to it later without underlining it.

Eight. Survives interruption perfectly well, being built in short sections, and I read most of it standing in the vestibule during a fortnight when there were no seats at all, going west, in the dark.