It is rare for a critic to feel justified in us-ing the word "masterpiece", but Ian Mc-Ewan's new book really deserves to be called one. We have known for a long time that he is a virtuoso technician, with almost too much facility for his own good. "Amsterdam" may have won him the Booker prize for fiction in 1998, but it was thin and irritatingly clever-clever. "Atonement", which is also on this year's Booker shortlist, is a work of astonishing depth and humanity.
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