The Principals

November 1, 2016

There is no battle quite like a pitched battle in British academia. In 1987, a time of austerity and deep budget cuts by the Thatcher government, Lawford Chote and Victor Tane merge their respective institutions, Sedge University, a Victorian red brick school, and Charter Mill, an arriviste upstart from the 1960s. Thirty years later, one of the few surviving lecturers from that period, Martin Moss, is shepherding the commissioning of statues to honor these principals. The narrative switches back and forth between the two periods. VERDICT Full disclosure: this reviewer is the daughter of a British history specialist, and this satirical look at the country's elite university culture is spot-on. James (First Fix Your Alibi) is bound to please fans of Sarah Caudwell or Robertson Davies.--Viccy Kemp, Flower Mound P.L, TX

Copyright 2016 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from October 15, 2016
James' latest moves away from crime fiction but finds the veteran novelist at his satirical best, as he exposes the one-upmanship, subtle insults, backbiting, pretentiousness, and twisted politics of academia. For readers, it's difficult to know whether to squirm with embarrassment or laugh out loud at the antics of the self-important group of university dons featured in the story. Dr. Lawford Chute, president of Sedge University, was a belligerent visionary who aimed to make Sedge a dominant player in British academia by merging the school with Charter Mill College, a moneymaking institution offering courses in pop-group management, pinball, and fruit-machine repair. But his ambition took him down wrong paths, and his rival, Dr. Victor Tane, president of Charter Mill, turned the tables, forcing Chute to retire in disgrace. Tane then orchestrated the merging of the two schools and became president of what grew into a respected institution. Twenty years later, Chute's tarnished reputation has been restored, and the university has decided to erect statues to him and Tane for their brilliance and vision. Now, however, the real test begins, as the Commemorative Statues Committee is faced with the daunting task of determining the relative size and position of the two sculptures as well as choosing the model on which the sculptor will base the two works. A droll, delightful, skillfully written piece of academic satire.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

A debate over erecting statues to honor two British university heads reveals some of the farcical ambitions, bureaucracy, and cant that are found only in academia.Welsh crime writer James (First Fix Your Alibi, 2016, etc.), known for the Harpur and Iles series, posits two provincial universities in one city with opposing reactions to government austerity in the 1980s. Under the bumptious Lawford Chote, Sedge is millions over budget, while Victor Tane has kept Charter Mill's finances in line with reality. The story moves back and forth between 1987, when Chote is mulling unrealistic plans to take over the other school, and 2014, when a committee of the schools--which in fact were merged under Tane--is mulling whether statues planned for Chote and Tane should occupy one plinth or two and on which campus they should reside. Readers will simply have to suspend disbelief in the idea that two provincial university principals would deserve statues under any government budget. Some of the humor is rather forced, but the committee meetings are often funny in their deadpan mockery of self-important educators given license to opine. One character is so perfectly absurd it's hard to read him without having the image of Stephen Fry constantly in mind. Another humorous thread begins with a talk on Lady Chatterley's Lover by Martin Moss in which he refers to some physical variation by the gamekeeper and the lady with a phrase that manages to arouse Chote's wife from her snoring, gin-deadened state in the lecture hall's front row. Principal Chote believes thereafter that Moss is something special, while allusions to his Chatterley trick pepper the novel. James can be entertaining, and he may stir warm memories of academic satires by Kingsley Amis, Mary McCarthy, or Randall Jarrell, but his effort isn't up to that pantheon. COPYRIGHT(1) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

September 1, 2016
A debate over erecting statues to honor two British university heads reveals some of the farcical ambitions, bureaucracy, and cant that are found only in academia.Welsh crime writer James (First Fix Your Alibi, 2016, etc.), known for the Harpur and Iles series, posits two provincial universities in one city with opposing reactions to government austerity in the 1980s. Under the bumptious Lawford Chote, Sedge is millions over budget, while Victor Tane has kept Charter Mill's finances in line with reality. The story moves back and forth between 1987, when Chote is mulling unrealistic plans to take over the other school, and 2014, when a committee of the schools--which in fact were merged under Tane--is mulling whether statues planned for Chote and Tane should occupy one plinth or two and on which campus they should reside. Readers will simply have to suspend disbelief in the idea that two provincial university principals would deserve statues under any government budget. Some of the humor is rather forced, but the committee meetings are often funny in their deadpan mockery of self-important educators given license to opine. One character is so perfectly absurd it's hard to read him without having the image of Stephen Fry constantly in mind. Another humorous thread begins with a talk on Lady Chatterley's Lover by Martin Moss in which he refers to some physical variation by the gamekeeper and the lady with a phrase that manages to arouse Chote's wife from her snoring, gin-deadened state in the lecture hall's front row. Principal Chote believes thereafter that Moss is something special, while allusions to his Chatterley trick pepper the novel. James can be entertaining, and he may stir warm memories of academic satires by Kingsley Amis, Mary McCarthy, or Randall Jarrell, but his effort isn't up to that pantheon.

COPYRIGHT(2016) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.