Date Posted:16:19:46 04/20/07 Fri Author: Syl Subject: Gentlemen and Players
Here's one that was sent in by Tooki. Thanks, Tooki!
TITLE: Gentlemen and Players
AUTHOR: Joanne Harris
GENRE: Contemporary fiction, maybe suspense, almost a psychological thriller
I will always pick up a book by this wonderful author (Chocolat, Five Quarters of the Orange, Coastliners, Holy Fools) and this one was no disappointment. Her characters are so brilliantly drawn and her stories so tightly and intricately plotted. DH read it first and at one point he said loudly “Oh my God!” and started flicking backwards though the pages. When I read it I saw why - what a twist! I am keen to read the book again in the light of what you come to know later.
The main narrator has come as a staff member to an English Public School (this of course is what everywhere else calls a private school) to bring the school to its knees in an act of vengeance for a grim childhood incident.
The story of the carefully plotted revenge runs alongside the gradually unfolding historical story. In addition, there is a second narrator who is an old master at the school on the verge of retirement who was witness to the culmination of the historical story.
Joanne Harris’ books are so well written, so evocative of people and places and feelings, and this I think is her best yet. Rather hard to put down though, be prepared to burn the midnight oil as they say!
