GENTLEMEN & PLAYERS

Joanne Harris has left her very successful franchise of tales about magical French food for the austere world of a British "public" grammar school for boys, and she's made a stunning success of it. Her plot here consists of a cat-and-mouse game between a new teacher at upper-crust St. Oswald's, who for ancient reasons wants to destroy the school, and a very senior--some would say superannuated--Latin master who alone understands that there is a plot, not a series of unrelated catastrophes. Steven Pacey creates different, yet wholly believable, voices for the two narrators, who are 35 years apart in age and so deeply different psychologically that it's hard to believe it's one actor. A dazzling performance and wickedly good entertainment. B.G. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine [Published: JUN/ JUL 06]