Next of Kin: A Novel

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		Next of Kin: A Novel
		Next of Kin: A Novel

基本信息·出版社：Thomas Dunne Books
·页码：368 页
·出版日期：2008年02月
·ISBN：0312357974
·International Standard Book Number：0312357974
·条形码：9780312357979
·EAN：9780312357979
·装帧：精装
·正文语种：英语

内容简介

John Boyne has been heralded as “one of the most imaginative and adventurous of the young Irish novelists working today” by the Irish Independent. He achieved bestseller status and won numerous awards worldwide for The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.  Now in Next of Kin, he steps into the drawing rooms and private clubs of the prewar English aristocracy to offer an unobstructed view of a social elite driven by the conflicting desires to uphold tradition and to acquire vast wealth.

It is 1936, and London is abuzz with gossip about the affair between Edward VIII and Mrs. Simpson. But the king is not the only member of the aristocracy with a hard decision to make. Owen Montignac, the handsome and charismatic scion of a wealthy family, is anxiously awaiting the reading of his late uncle’s will, for Owen has run up huge gambling debts and casino boss Nicholas Delfy has given him a choice: Find 50,000 pounds by Christmas or find yourself six feet under. So when Owen discovers that he has been cut out of the will in favor of his cousin Stella, he finds that even a royal crisis can provide the means for profit, and for murder.

Next of Kin vividly captures the spirit of 1930s London, revealing the secrets of the upperclass, complete with gambling, murder, an art heist, and a conspiracy to unseat the new king that could change the future of the country.

 

作者简介

John Boyne is author of Crippen, The Thief of Time, and the New York Times and internationally bestselling The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. Boyne won two Irish Book Awards for The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, which has recently been made into a Miramax feature film, and his novels have been translated into more than thirty languages. He lives with his partner in Dublin. You can visit him online at www.johnboyne.com.

媒体推荐

 

Praise for Thief of Time

 

“The Thief of Time is a learned and at times provocative read.”

---America magazine

 

“This lively historical saga . . . is undyingly recommended.”

---Booklist

 

“Boyne is creative and entertaining, particularly as he develops his characters.”

---Library Journal

 

 

Praise for Crippen

 

“Boyne’s fictionalization of the gruesome scandal combines the best of true crime and old-fashioned mysteries in an addictive tale.” 

---People magazine

 

“Grimly fascinating . . . a dark comedy that is supremely readable, always suspenseful, sometimes laugh-out-loud funny.”

---The Washington Post

 

“Boyne is to be commended for his ability to alternate between Wodehousian humor and Edwardian noir.” 

---Publishers Weekly (starred review)

 

专业书评 From Publishers Weekly

Set in 1936, this well-plotted thriller from Irish author Boyne (Crippen) links the fates of two flawed young Englishmen with that of their king—who's soon to give up the throne for love—in a cat's cradle of theft, blackmail and murder. Hedonistic Gareth Bentley stubbornly refuses to pursue a respectable career, to his lawyer father's dismay, while the embittered Owen Montignac, who's been cut out of his late uncle's will, must come up with £50,000 by year's end to pay off a gambling debt—or pay the consequences. When Gareth winds up framed for murder, Gareth's parents, the book's most sympathetic characters, wrestle with their consciences, fearful that the other may learn just how far he or she would compromise his or her principles to save their son. The occasional anachronism jars (plastic chairs in a prison visitors area), but fans of JacquelineWinspear and David Roberts will be well rewarded. (Feb.)
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文摘 Chapter 1
Many years earlier, when he was a lieutenant in the army stationed just outside Paris, Charles Richards had come across a young recruit, a boy of about eighteen years of age, sitting alone on his bunk in the mess with his head held in his hands, weeping silently. After a brief interrogation it turned out that the boy missed his family and home and had never wanted to join the army in the first place but had been forced into it by his ex-serviceman father. The thought of another early morning call, followed by a twenty-mile march over rough terrain, all the time ducking enemy fire, had reduced him to an emotional wreck.
‘Stand up,’ said Richards, gesturing the boy to his feet with his finger as he took off the heavy leather gloves he was wearing. The boy stood. ‘What’s your name, boy?’ he asked.
‘William Lacey, sir,’ he replied, wiping his eyes and unable to look the officer directly in the face. ‘Bill.’
Richards had then gripped his glove tightly by the fingers and slapped the boy about the face with it twice, once on the left cheek and once on the right, leaving a sudden explosion of red bursting out on his otherwise pale skin. ‘Soldiers,’ he said to the stunned conscript, ‘do not cry. Ever.’
It was a matter of some astonishment to him then that sitting here in the eighth row of a private chapel in Westminster Abbey on a bright June morning in 1936, he discovered a spring of tears itching to break forth from behind his own eyes as Owen Montignac reached the conclusion of the eulogy for his late uncle, Peter, a man who Richards had never particularly liked, a fellow he in fact considered to be little more than a rogue and a charlatan. He had attended many funerals in his life and now, at his advanced age, he was depressed to note how the intervals between them were becoming shorter and shorter. Still, he had never heard a son
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