catalogue details

Set like a chess game, with icons preceding each chapter, it is written from three points of view: the 80s, from the Classics teacher, Straitley and the anonymous diary/letter to 'Mousey'. This last one provides the reader with a great plot twist, and the teacher's account is quite unreliable - giving the reader that great feeling of knowing more and sense of foreboding. The story is well-written - both in language and structure. There is well-drawn, especially with the older teachers. I enjoyed the clash of cultures between the elderly teacher and his traditional ways and the younger teachers and their modernising drive. Despite a slow start, by the end I just couldn't put it down. I now want to go back and read the first two!