Girls, I am telling you, every time some author comes out with an academic whodunnit, the name "Donna Tartt" is invoked by some critic. This has got to stop. It may come as a shock to some whose knowledge of literature does not go back more than five years, but Tartt did not invent the genre, She just defined and set its standard, with her masterwork, "The Secret History."
"The Club", by Takis Wurger, whom I thought to be a pseudonym for Brett Easton Ellis, until I saw the photo on the back, is a quick enough, fun read, that is easy to figure out where it is going. And it is a bit misogynistic.
Alexandra, an aunt who is a Cambridge Art History professor, asks her nephew, who is bright enough, to attend, while filtering out a crime--or is it crimes?--that took place at the hands of members of an all-male organization, called The Pitt Club. He becomes a member, and secrets unravel. None of which, by the way, surprised me.
What did surprise me was the handing out of justice, which goes back to Agatha Christie. To see what I mean, read the ending of her masterwork, "And Then There Were None."
"The Club" provided me entertainment on a cold, Winter's night, and will do the same for you.
But, guys, lay off Donna Tartt! She will never be topped!
Takis was actually a boxer in college.
ReplyDeleteAnd was in a lot of clubs...
But I’m not going to read this so tell me how it ends!!
ReplyDeleteVictoria,
I did not know Takis was a boxer.
Boxing figures prominently in the story.
The Ending--The anunt/professor's
grad asst. turns out to be one of a
daughter of a club alum, Angus Fairchild.
She, Cahrlotte, finally reveals she was raped
at a club meeting to which she was spefically
invited--and that her father raped the aunt.
Charlotte names her attacker. Her father sneaks
into his house with a rifle, and shots him, asleep,
point blank, in the head. Then, riddled with guilt
and remorse, he rigs the gun so he can point it
at himself, and committ suicide, which he does.