Buster: The Dog Who Saved A Thousand Lives by RAF Police Sergeant Will Barrow and Isabel George is published in hardback by Virgin Books, priced £9.99 (ebook £6.99). Available January 29

The humble dog has always been called "man's best friend" and this tale only goes to prove that statement.

This is the story of Buster a springer spaniel by breed, a hero to many.

RAF Police Flight Sergeant Will Barrow, an experienced dog handler, tells the remarkable story of how he came to work with and ultimately befriend Buster.

This is an intimate profile of two soldiers working as a team, through the intensity of training for search and destroy missions, to the actual horrors of war, where Buster served at the frontline, finding explosive devices. His bravery would ultimately save many lives.

Now both retired, Buster, a decorated war dog, continues to live with Will and his family, and as Will himself says, it would take over a lifetime to repay Buster for his loyalty.

A must-read, a moving tale, a story of true friendship.

9/10

(Review by Phil Robinson)

FICTION

Dead Girl Walking by Christopher Brookmyre is published in hardback by Little, Brown, priced £18.99 (ebook £9.49). Available now

This long-awaited return of Jack Parlabane sees the journalist down-on-his-luck and desperate for work, when he gets a call from the sister of an old friend. She wants him to find Heike Gunn, the talented but diva-like genius behind Savage Earth Heart, who has gone missing in Berlin on the last day of their European tour. Interspersed with Parlabane's search in flashback is an account in blog form of the band's new violinist joining the band and what she makes of finding herself in this rock and roll world after growing up on Shetland playing traditional and classical fiddle. B rookmyre's story is very much rooted in the real world. His journalist lives in a post-Leveson world but has the smart-mouth tendencies of private eyes of an earlier age. Readers of the series will be interested in seeing how Parlabane is dealing with the break-up of his relationship and being on the wrong end of a scandal. But you needn't have read any of the previous books first before plunging into the seedier side of the music business.

8/10

(Review by Bridie Pritchard)

The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman is published in paperback by Tor UK, priced £7.99 (ebook £3.59). Available now

The Invisible Library opens with the theft of a book from a magic boarding school - a sort of heist on Hogwarts that immediately sets the tone. The thief is Irene, an agent of the Library. They're an organisation collecting books from different realities overflowing with magic and mystical creatures. Irene's next mission is retrieving fairy tales from a steampunk London, full of Victorian cogs and fogs. It's a well-worn setting, but Genevieve Cogman adds enough flavour to these tropes to keep it interesting. And even when the book lapses into paragraphs of exposition explaining the fantastical cocktail of a premise, Cogman is always willing to add cyborg alligators (or similar oddness) whenever it threatens to drag. Leaving some questions unanswered for possible future instalments, it's a promising debut for both Cogman and the Library. But most of all, it's a fun, bibliophilic adventure suitable for any bookshelf in this reality.

7/10

(Review by Stephen Wood)

Age, Sex, Location by Melissa Pimentel is published in paperback by Penguin, priced £7.99 (ebook £2.48). Available January 29

The dating world has never been straightforward, but with the advent of online dating sites, the popularity of speed dating and singles nights, not to mention Tinder, it's more difficult to navigate than ever before. After moving to London from Portland, Oregon, American Lauren Cunningham is lamenting her lack of potential suitors, so she decides to tackle the city's single scene head on by turning her love life into a scientific experiment. She dedicates herself to following the rules of one renowned dating guide a month, no matter how crazy or incredibly ridiculous it makes her look. A hilarious and refreshingly honest dating romp, Age, Sex, Location will make you chuckle and cringe in equal measure. Witty, rude and a lot of fun, while it's certainly not a classic piece of literature and the protagonist Lauren occasionally verges into annoying territory, it's an entertaining escape for when you fancy some light reading.

6/10

(Review by Alison Potter)

Alice And The Fly by James Rice is published in hardback by Hodder & Stoughton, priced £14.99 (ebook £7.49). Available now

Rice's protagonist, teenager Gregory Hall, is beset by a debilitating arachnophobia and a crippling shyness which are never explicitly diagnosed. Nicknamed 'psycho' at school, caught in the middle of his parents' loveless marriage at home, he speaks scarcely a word throughout the book. But through his diaries, which he is encouraged to write as therapy, we enter into his inner world and his own internal logic. As his obsession with the eponymous Alice grows, the narrative builds from one boy's delusions towards something altogether darker. As befits his narrator, the writing is at times frustratingly simplistic, but in this debut, Rice captures his dislocation and the loneliness well. It is a book about conformity, and how our desire to conform can blind us to the deeper needs of individuals. The genre birthed by The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time shows little sign of abating.

6/10

(Review by Adam Weymouth)

NON-FICTION

The Middle Ages by Johannes Fried (translated by Peter Lewis) is published in hardback by Belknap Press, priced £25 (ebook £23.75). Available now

Johannes Fried's project is certainly ambitious - condensing 1,000 years of history into a coherent volume is not an easy task. But Fried manages it with aplomb, anchoring each chapter around a key figure from the Middle Ages. This is a handy device, allowing him to zoom in on specific places and themes, whilst retaining a firm grasp on the bigger picture. It's a relatively traditional view of the so-called Dark Ages and compared to some contemporary scholars, Fried's view of the Medieval period still emphasises a marked contrast between this period and the bookends of Classical Antiquity and the Renaissance. This is not a book for the armchair philosopher, with complex twists and turns and a quite incredible amount of detail, to enjoy the writing, some prior grounding in history would be useful. Overall though, encompassing religion, politics, art, literature, social structures and much more besides, the breadth of the book would make it a useful reference for students and amateur scholars.

7/10

(Review by Prudence Ivey)

After Hitler: The Last Days Of World War Two In Europe by Michael Jones is published in hardback by John Murray, priced £20 (ebook £7.47). Available now

Hitler, broken and despairing, killed himself on April 30th, 1945; the war in Europe formally ended on May 9th (though Britain and America celebrated on the 8th). Acclaimed historian Jones resists the common urge to skip over that gap, unearthing a wealth of intriguing detail, much from primary sources. For instance, Admiral Dönitz, Hitler's appointed successor as German leader, is normally a footnote; Jones' attentions reveal a devious figure, as sinister as he was ridiculous. A key theme is the tensions between Stalin and the Western powers as their alliance increasingly gave way to the tensions which would define the Cold War, tensions which crumbling German forces strove to exploit; nationally, and at an individual level, they much preferred surrendering to nations which had not experienced the brutality of the Eastern Front. In a year sure to be swamped with WWII publications, few are likely to offer such novel approaches.

8/10

(Review by Alex Sarll)

CHILDREN'S BOOK OF THE WEEK

Glitterbelle: The Sparkliest Princess Ever! by Rachael Duckett and Harriet Muncaster is published in paperback by Parragon, priced £5.99. Available now

Princesses are big business at the moment - with the Disney ones represented in full at every girls' party throughout the land. Glitterbelle is a very modern Princess - who hates peas. But there's news for this tree-climbing, scooter-riding girl: her family owe their kingdom to peas, for it was her great-great-great-great-grandmamma who was discovered to be a real princess when she couldn't sleep on a bed that had a pea hiding under the mattress. Sound familiar? Glitterbelle, who'd really like to be a vet, fears she can't be a real princess if she doesn't like peas. But her canny mum, Queen Lizzie has an idea to make everything better. Illustrator Harriet Muncaster has cleverly constructed the most delightful sets, using cardboard, oodles of diamante and sketches of her small cast, while Rachael Dunkett has woven a story that will no doubt delight its target audience.

7/10

(Review by Kate Whiting)

BESTSELLERS FOR WEEK ENDING JANUARY 25

HARDBACKS

1. The Girl on the Train, Paula Hawkins

2. The Missing and the Dead: Logan McRae, Stuart MacBride

3. Girl Online, Zoe Sugg

4. Runaway, Peter May

5. Love, Tanya, Tanya Burr

6. Diary Of A Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul, Jeff Kinney

7. The Mime Order: The Bone Season, Samantha Shannon

8. Awful Auntie, David Walliams

9. Minecraft Blockopedia: Minecraft

10. The Churchill Factor: How One Man Made History, Boris Johnson

(Compiled by Waterstones)

PAPERBACKS

1. The Miniaturist, Jessie Burton

2. Elizabeth is Missing, Emma Healey

3. Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel

4. Happiness by Design: Finding Pleasure and Purpose in Everyday Life, Paul Dolan

5. American Sniper [Movie Tie-in Edition]: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History, Chris Kyle, Scott McEwen & Jim DeFelice

6. The Accident, Chris Pavone The Guest Cat, Takashi Hiraide

7. The Son, Jo Nesbo Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn

8. Davina's 5 Weeks to Sugar-Free: Yummy, Easy Recipes to Help You Kick Sugar, Davina McCall

9. Pinocchio, Michaell Morpurgo

10. A Testament of Youth: An Autobiographical Study of the Years 1900-1925, Vera Brittain

(Compiled by Waterstones)

EBOOKS

1. The Girl on the Train, Paula Hawkins

2. Sleepyhead, Mark Billingham

3. The State We're In, Adele Parks

4. The Little Shop of Hopes and Dreams, Fiona Harper

5. The Black Echo, Michael Connelly

6. Stardust, Neil Gaiman

7. Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn

8. The Man in the Rubber Mask, Robert Llewellyn

9. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson

10. The Miniaturist, Jessie Burton

(Compiled by amazon.co.uk)