Vanishing by Gerard Woodward (Picador)

by Patrick O'Connor

YOU certainly can't accuse author Gerard Woodward of producing a light-weight book.

Packed into the 500 pages of Vanishing are several different tales from several different eras.

It's a first person narration by Kenneth Brill, who when we first meet him, is in a British prison sometime in the latter stages of the Second World War.