Description
After thirty years at St Oswald’s Grammar in North Yorkshire, Latin master Roy Straitley has seen all kinds of boys come and go. Each class has its clowns, its rebels, its underdogs, its ‘Brodie’ boys who, whilst of course he doesn’t have favourites, hold a special place in an old teacher’s heart. But every so often there’s a boy who doesn’t fit the mould. A troublemaker. A boy with hidden shadows inside.
With insolvency and academic failure looming, a new broom has arrived at the venerable school, bringing Powerpoint, sharp suits and even sixth form girls to the dusty corridors. But while Straitley does his sardonic best to resist this march to the future, a shadow from his past is stirring. A boy who even twenty years on haunts his teacher’s dreams. A boy capable of bad things.
Review
I've had this on my TBR pile for ages - initially drawn to it by the author as I loved her earlier work.
This is in a different vein to the books I've read by her before. There is a book before this one set in the same school but I hadn't read it and it doesn't seem to matter to the story if you haven't.
Set in 2005 with flipping to 1981 Latin master Roy Straitley annoyed me at first. He will not read emails, instead he has them printed and put in his pigeon hole in the staff room until they are removed in favour of workstations. I encountered some of this in the past but it was earlier than this - maybe that is what riled me. The next thing was that Mr Straitley loves to have a little fun using Latin which as someone who never took Latin was lost on me. I did look some of it up, but it got that it was too long winded to do so.
The book has a narration set in 1981 by a pupil - but we don't know their identity. I guessed and was wrong! I began to lose my grip on who was who as for most of the book the boys in the school are referred to by their given names, but then when the pupils narrate they use nicknames. It all just got a bit confusing.
However, a bit like lines or detention I was not going to let the book beat me and I stuck with it. I was glad I did, because when it all began to come together it was really a great tense thriller. Getting to this part had felt a little protracted though.
I'm giving this book 3 out of 5 stars. My thanks to Netgalley for an ARC to review.
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