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That Mark Haddon's first book after The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is a book of poetry will perhaps come as a surprise to his legions of fans; that it is also one of such virtuosity and range will simply astonish them. The Talking Horse and the Sad Girl and the Village Under the Sea reveals a poet of great versatility and formal talent: all the gifts so admired in Haddon's prose are in strong evidence here - the humanity of his voices, the dark humour and the uncanny ventriloquism - but Haddon is also a writer of considerable seriousness, lyric power and surreal invention. Here are bittersweet love-lyrics, lucid and bold new versions of Horace, comic set-pieces, lullabies, wry postmodern shenanigans (including a note from the official board of censors on "18" certificate poetry), and an entire John Buchan novel condensed to five pages. The Talking Horse and the Sad Girl and the Village Under the Sea will consolidate his reputation as our most powerful myth-weavers and spell-makers, as well as one of the most outrageous and freewheeling imaginations at work in contemporary literature.