It’s all going on at the moment. We’ve got Christmas preparations underway, the beloved is working like a demon, I want to paint the kitchen and littlest monkey has a birthday soon. I need to escape and travel is not an option.
Instead, I used the tried and tested method of the good book. Now personal taste plays a part but when times are stressful I don’t want to plough through a classic or literary fiction, which is a pigging awful term for serious novels about serious things all of which can be done more entertainingly by genre fiction. What I want is a big fat mystery novel that’s gripping so I am immersed and then I can force it on someone else.
I found Joanne Harris’ Gentlemen and Players in The Guardians list of 10 novels with a twist. When I told people what I was reading they all said “is that the one with the… oh I can’t tell you” which was a very good sign.
It was “the one with the” and I didn’t see the twist coming until two pages before. This is not due to my cleverness (but I am quite the cleverest everest) but because I was talking to a friend about great endings to books and this reminded me of that. It’s everything I love. A mystery in a school, a grudge to be settled, a duel of wits and class struggle. It’s dark, sarcastic and satisfying. Brilliant for a winter read.
There is only one problem with it. Until you find someone else who has read it, you can’t talk about it. I will be forcing copies on all my friends and checking their progress. I’m nice like that.