Gentlemen and Players is a wonderful book which convinced me that nobody does plots, intrigues and denouements better than Joanne Harris. On the face of it, this is a straightforward story, of the jealous son of a pirvate school caretaker, who infiltrates himself into the school by stealing bits of uniform and surruptiously taking part in sports and games, and later lessons. However, this turns out to be a tale of high drama, as a number of years later, the school suffers various calamities which threaten its very existence.
The characters are very well drawn - Roy Straitley, the aging classics master is perhaps the key character and so much of the story revolves around his slightly embittered and cynical personality. Roy has seen it all before, and yet events take even him by surprise and he turns out to be a key player in the unfolding drama. But all the characterisations are strong, and several weeks after reading the book, I find it easy to remember the parts played by the various "gentlemen and players".
This is a "mystery" book - at its core is a complex story with an unpredictable ending. I recommend this book to anyone who likes a great story, and the feeling of being so absorbed in a book that you want to go on reading it at a single sitting.