Throw Me to the Wolves

Throw Me To The Wolves is a literary mystery that is vastly more literary than mystery. True, the story includes a murder – a woman is strangled – but the only mystery is how the police could be so incompetent and lackadaisical. Their chief suspect appears to be physically incapable of committing the crime. (A defense lawyer would have a field day.) And they fail to initiate an obvious line of inquiry early in their investigation. When they eventually do, hey presto, the murderer pops right out. Indeed, the murder and the murderer’s apprehension are little more than bookends for the author’s main areas of focus – brutal victimization in English public schools and ugly humiliation through the English media. Here, the heart and soul of the book, the author comes into his own. The writing is striking; at times it is arresting, evocative and full of meaning, and at other times it is slippery, intangible and hard to grasp. But at all times the writing is thought-provoking and emotionally stirring. Events and feelings remembered from schooldays by both teachers and student victims and the injustice, obscene and insidious, meted out by the press are captured in ways that bring them to life as you read and will haunt you long after you’ve put the book down. Don’t read Throw Me To The Wolves for the mystery; just read the words.