Ben, a politician transparently based on Boris Johnson, intends to bid for the premiership. But will he be destroyed by the murky secrets in his past?
The plot of this novel is so predictable that I started playing thriller trope bingo. It could have been written from a checklist of recent scandals:
- MP surfs porn on office computer
- MP is rehabilitated through a reality TV show
- Oil protestor is daughter of Cabinet minister
- Another oil protestor is an undercover cop (this seems doubtful since he is the leader of the group and therefore any possible prosecution would be compromised by accusations that he was an agent provocateur).
- A young girl is sexually abused by an older male family member
- Rape
- A rehabilitation clinic is presided over by an Austrian doctor with a comic German accent
- The rich daughter of the gentry becomes a drug addict
- There is gaslighting
To be charitable one could say this is satire but it's too heavy handed to be funny. And so many of the targets for its scorn are cheap and easy. Trains, for example, always run late.
What about the characters? Stereotype after stereotype: Hapless MP, ruthless MP, ruthless hedge fund manager, gay academic, poor little rich girl, sidelined wife and mother. On the other hand, the main protagonist, Martin, is was a scholarship boy at a posh School, simultaneously entranced and rejected by the upper classes. Given that this describes my own schooling almost exactly, you would have thought I would have empathised like mad and identified with this character. But the pedestrian quality of the writing and the predictability of the plot left me not caring at all what would happen to any of these wooden puppets.
There are moments when the editing seems slapdash. A mixed metaphor is pointed out when half of the metaphor hasn’t been mentioned. Timelines sometimes seem discrepant. 172,437 is said to be 0.000000149% of 67 million when it is actually 0.25%. 0.000000149% of 67 million is 1. I couldn't work out whether Martin's suspension from employment ended.
Apparently it is a sequel and the Guardian reckons it is better than the earlier novel, so I won't be reading that. The last line, in which the author directly addresses the reader, opens up the possibility of a further sequel. I won’t be reading that either.
Selected quotes:
- “Cheeks like a hamster on a particularly nutritious seed binge.” (Ch 1)
- “My mother taught me early on that life was meant to be endured and, if possible, mocked.” (Ch 1)
- “I am all sides. A hall of mirrors in human form.” (Ch 1)
- “Long dining tables set with family silver and inherited insouciance." (Ch 4)
- “We believe we are a country incapable of dictatorial rule when, in truth, we are just as susceptible to the lure of monstrous men (and it is always men) as everywhere else.” (Ch 6) It isn't always men: Mrs Gandhi. Catherine the Great. Madame Mao.
- “My life was a constant criss-crossing over different classes and cultures.” (Ch 6)
- “LGBTQ-A-B-C-D-plus-minus” (Ch 8)
- “Gary told him it didn't matter if he cried; that it would, in fact, ‘show your human side’ - as if he possessed another, more noticeable, non-human side.” (Ch 8)
- “Wanting is only for the people who have to try.” (Ch 9)
- “The smallest child, built like an oblong with hair, start growling from his seat at the table.” (Ch 11)
- “Rocket, the most overrated of the brassicas.” (Ch 11)
Once again I am left failing to understand how such a poorly written book could be praised. Stanley Tucci calls it "brilliantly written". Lucy Foley compares it to Patricia Highsmith and describes it as a "gimlet-eyed interrogation". Kate Mosse says it is "superbly crafted". It is a bestseller. The Guardian reviewer praised it. What did these people see that I missed?
January 2026;
Published in 2025 by 4th Estate, an imprint of HarperCollins
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