WRITING one novel must be taxing, but writing a novel within a novel within a novel within a novel must be nigh on impossible.

Few writers would be up to the job, but Margaret Atwood seizes the opportunity with her usual vigour and is seemingly undaunted by the labyrinthine task she sets herself.

Although not entirely successful, this remains a remarkable book containing both the deep humour and the dark drama we have come to expect from this formidable yet compelling Canadian writer.

She pulls you in from the first line ("Ten days after the war ended my sister Laura drove a car off a bridge") and doesn't let go until the truth - or at least one character's view of the truth - about this untimely death is unravelled.

But Laura Chase's death is only one part of this epic tale. It is also about her sister Iris's life, which she details in a searingly honest memoir, a sensational novel about a risky affair between a wealthy woman and a man on the run, and a pulp fantasy set on the Planet Zycron which the lovers concoct during their secret trysts.

With great storytelling and vivid clarity Atwood manages to bring all these seemingly unconnected elements into a highly satisfying whole.

The Blind Assassin thoroughly deserves its Booker Prize nomination (the author's fourth nomination), but it is not the author at her blindingly skilful best.

If Margaret Atwood couldn't win the prize with Alias Grace, her most breathtaking work to date, then she shouldn't win with this.

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood (Bloomsbury, £16.99)