Author(s): Claire Dowley

Crime Fiction

A contemporary spoof crime fiction novel that centres around a group of Bridge players in an exclusive boarding school on the south coast of England.The story opens with six like-minded teachers at the end of their careers playing their weekly Bridge game in an apartment above a marina that abuts the school. During the evening they witness the explosion and subsequent burning of one of the moored yachts. As havoc unravels below, they hear that a woman was, more than likely, aboard the yacht and a husband is left howling on the jetty. The seasoned Bridge group start to sleuth, after all there is no tired old gumshoe in this crime novel. Their eclectic and sometimes eccentric backgrounds give them much scope for intrigue.Further deaths within the school sees the narrative romp along, revealing the underbelly of the lives of the teachers and providing a commentary on a type of modern education and the career opportunists that exist in these schools. The serious implications for the direction of modern education are never far from the surface. Much of the story's humour is based on the eccentricities of the various characters and observations of self-delusional behaviours. These caricatures provide touching moments that give a humane dimension to the picture while the narrative lilt is sustained through balanced phraseology, innuendo and alliteration. It is, of course, the Bridge group that solves the mystery. The world is thus put to rights and all can get back to playing cards.