The Book Depository Next of Kin by John Boyne
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Price: £9.99
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Description: Next of Kin : Paperback : Transworld Publishers Ltd : 9780552777407 : 0552777404 : 13 Sep 2012 : For Owen has run up huge gambling debts and casino boss Nicholas Delfy has given him a choice: find GBP50,000 by Christmas - or find yourself six feet under. So when Owen discovers that he has been cut out of the will in favour of his beautiful cousin Stella, it is time to prove just how cunning he can be. The Book Depository Next of Kin by John Boyne - shop the best deal online on thebookbug.co.uk
Category: Books
Merchant: The Book Depository
Product ID: 9780552777407
MPN: 0552777404
GTIN: 9780552777407
Author: Howard pirece
Rating: 5
Review: One of his best. Unlike many novels the tempo and plot do not let up in the middle.A real page turner with life like characters.
Author: C. E. Utley
Rating: 2
Review: I fear I will not be able to remember all the howlers in this extraordinarily ill-researched book. But let's see how far I get. Inevitably, Mr Boyne does not understand the difference in meaning between uninterested and disinterested (he thinks disinterested sounds more grown up so uses it when he means uninterested). Then, again inevitably, he reckons the wives of knights are properly referred to as Lady first name surname as though they were the daughters of earls, marquesses or dukes (that only matters because the novel is set in the 1930s when such mistakes simply weren't made). But those are just the standard errors of second rate authors. There is much worse to come (in no particular order). The novel is set in 1936. One of the characters, Owen, is twenty-five years old. We are told he went to Eton at the age of seven. That would be 1918 or thereabouts. I am prepared to believe that Eton took boys as young as seven a few hundred years ago. I know for a fact that it did not do so as recently as 1918. We are told about a large headline about a murder trial on the front page (the page is emphasised) of the Times in 1936. That newspaper was famous for devoting its front page to classified advertisements until 1966. News was never to be found there. One of the characters, a High Court judge, is introduced to us as Mr Justice Roderick Bentley KC. That (including KC) is an understandable error. But telling us that he has been a High Court judge for fifteen years and is also head of his chambers is a ludicrous nonsense. On appointment to the bench judges leave their barristers' chambers and obviously can't be head of them. While we are on this point, Mr Boyne refers to the chambers as a "firm" and to its members as "partners". That, again, is quite wrong. There are two Old Bailey trials which feature in this novel. In both of them we are told that prosecuting and defending counsel are called "Mr Justice" so and so. Mr Justice is a title accorded to High Court judges, not to practising barristers. A very minor point, but High Court judges are addressed as My Lord, not as Your Honour. Obviously, Mr Boyne's knowledge of procedure in English law courts in the 1930s comes from his study of 21st century American films. "Objection". "Sustained". You can imagine it (we are even told of one of the barristers walking up and down the court room as he addresses the jury). I know, this list of howlers is becoming tedious. But there is one which has to be included, because it is at the heart of the plot. Mr Boyne thinks that judges trying murder cases in the 1930s had a discretion as to whether to impose the death penalty once a defendant was convicted (of murder). Indeed, we are assured that the judge could choose anything between a month or two in prison and death. All Mr Boyne had to do was to ask any lawyer (or any educated English man or woman) to glance through his manuscript. He would then have realised how much he had got wrong and would have started again (the plot could not survive correction of the death penalty error). It's a pity because Mr Boyne is not a wholly bad writer. Charles
