Joanne Harris Gentlemen & Players

Gentlemen & Players

Joanne Harris

Morrow, Jan 2006, $24.95, 432 pp.

ISBN: 0060559144

Only the elite attend St. Oswald's boys' grammar school in Northern England. Popular classics teacher Roy Straitley, in his ninety-ninth term, recognizes that truism as he for instance could never have attended this upper crust school for the affluent, but though his roots differ from that of his students the headstrong proud instructor loves teaching here as he has for three decades.

However, this year is different though it has just begun; Roy remains utterly loyal to St. Oswald's, but fears his time is over and considers retirement as the electronic age has made him feel like a dinosaur and the German department displaced him from his long timer office. He might adapt to email though he doubts it and relocation though he hates it, but five new faculty members prove difficult. One of the newcomers Snyde, the long time handyman's child, hides his identity returning as a teacher with plans to destroy St. Oswald's. As the violence Snyde perpetuates grows increasingly dangerous, an academically cocooned Roy and his peers ignore the omen that murder may follow.

Readers know from the start that Snyde has an Everest gripe with his mistreatment when he lived here as the son of a worker as he and Roy share narrative honors. Roy is a fabulous crusty aging teacher who considers retirement. On the other hand Snyde's anger from alleged childhood affronts at home and from the school fuels his obsession but fails to come across as a potentially deadly antagonist as his alibis condoning his sociopath behavior seem weak. Still readers will appreciate this game of chess between an in check Roy vs. Snyde seeking checkmate, which he defines as the demise of St. Oswald's.

Harriet Klausner