The Levant Trilogy, by Olivia Manning (Penguin, £9.99 in UK)

Presumably there is a certain autobiographical element in Olivia Manning's three novels, which recreate the mood and ambience of the war years. Her world is at once derncine and very English - a reflection perhaps of the fact that she was English born but spent much of her early years in Ireland. Most of the trilogy is set in wartime Cairo, where emigre civilians led their own, rather sealed off existence, close to the fighting yet not part of it. This is essentially good middlebrow fiction of the upper range, well written, well observed, and not especially characterful or memorable.