Prentis, the narrator of this nightmarish novel, catalogs "dead crimes" for a branch of the London Police Department and suspects that he...
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reviews
Feb 11, 2011
Ian
rated it: 
Picked this up - it looked like a new Swift Book (I cannot recommend Last Orders and The Light of Day highly enough). This turns out to have been a much earlier book, written in 1981.
The story is of Prentice - A cruel man, working in a dead end job filing historical crime records for the police.
He has a family that he either dominates or ignores in equal measure and a boss that bullies him. You feel in the book that his frustrations are going to end in major tears.
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The story is of Prentice - A cruel man, working in a dead end job filing historical crime records for the police.
He has a family that he either dominates or ignores in equal measure and a boss that bullies him. You feel in the book that his frustrations are going to end in major tears.
More...
Aug 29, 2009
Joyce
rated it: 
A distinctly odd psychological thriller from a writer I greatly admire, Shuttlecock delves inside the mind of an unhappy and perhaps paranoid archivist who works in the dead cases archives of the London police department. Writing in the first person as Prentis, the archivist, Swift examines relationships, motivations and reactions of those closest to Prentis: his boss, the calculatingly cruel Quinn, his ever "pliant" wife Marian, his children, and his stroke-silenced father, a British
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May 31, 2009
Scott
rated it: 
A fantastic novel. Strikes me as less like Waterland and Last Orders, which and more like a more conventional kind of mystery or thriller (albeit a thriller that's deeply focused on characters haunted by guilt over their past actions).
Jan 12, 2009
Benjamin
rated it:
I like nearly all of Swift's fiction, but I have difficulty remembering the plot of this one. I recall there was some of Swift's common ground - a multi-generational, non-chronological narrative, some family strife and a father who tries to impress his son. Probably some adultery. But I don't remember much else.
Jul 29, 2011
Catherine
rated it:
I read this with Jake and Joel and liked it far more than they did--it is an ambiguous story of past and what the effect of the past is on the present--and how they also affect the future
Mar 08, 2011
Saibal
rated it:
Cannot figure the particular reason why I liked this book. Some things can be pointed out though. A fluent writing style, well documented dilemma of the protagonist, the sinister plot and the synchronization of the weird elements and above all the story-within-a-story narrative.
Would give it a 3.5
Would give it a 3.5
May 09, 2011
Harry
rated it:
Depressing mood but interesting psychological novel. Hard to identify with the main character.
Jun 26, 2010
David (Dafydd)
rated it:
Dare I say Graham Swift trying to be John le Carre? An unusual thriller that begs more questions than it answers.
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