Harnessing Peacocks

by Mary Wesley

Living happily alone in a seaside town in Cornwall, lovely Hebe supports her son at an expensive boarding school by cooking and discreetly making love for profit, until the unexpected happens

Genres: Fiction, British Literature, Romance, 20th Century, Literary Fiction, Womens, Book Club

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1985

About the author

Mary Wesley, CBE was an English novelist. She reportedly worked in MI5 during World War II. During her career, she became one of Britain's most successful novelists, selling three million copies of her books, including 10 best-sellers in the last 20 years of her life.

She wrote three children's books, Speaking Terms and The Sixth Seal (both 1969) and Haphazard House (1983), before publishing adult fiction. Since her first adult novel was published only in 1983, when she was 71, she may be regarded as a late bloomer. The publication of Jumping the Queue in 1983 was the beginning of an intensely creative period of Wesley's life. From 1982 to 1991, she wrote and delivered seven novels. While she aged from 70 to 79 she still showed the focus and drive of a young person.
Her best known book, The Camomile Lawn, set on the Roseland Peninsula in Cornwall, was turned into a television series, and is an account of the intertwining lives of three families in rural England during World War II. After The Camomile Lawn (1984) came Harnessing Peacocks (1985 and as TV film in 1992), The Vacillations of Poppy Carew (1986 and filmed in 1995), Not That Sort of Girl (1987), Second Fiddle (1988), A Sensible Life (1990), A Dubious Legacy (1993), An Imaginative Experience (1994) and Part of the Furniture (1997). A book about the West Country with photographer Kim Sayer, Part of the Scenery, was published in 2001. Asked why she had stopped writing fiction at the age of 84, she replied: "If you haven't got anything to say, don't say it.

From Mary Wesley

Reviews

[Shovelmonkey1 · Rating 4 out of 5]

For those of you who are not familiar with Mary Wesley, here's a brief introduction;

She was kick-ass with a capital K.

Need more info? Fair enough. Born in 1912 she lived till the fairly grand age of 90 and racked up ten novels and a CBE all of which was achieved after her 70th birthday.

When not writing best sellers and scandalising what was left of so called "polite society" in the 1980s she was ( and this is supposition on my part) busy outliving and outdoing most people who were less than half her age. With an affair and two marriages under her belt she had a liberal attitude to sex, swearing and thumbing her nose at wannabe posh knobs with sticks up their arses.

Most famous for writing The Camomile Lawn, she continues on a similar series of themes in Harnessing Peacocks by penning the liberal tale of Hebe, 19 year old runaway turned part time cook and call girl. With a 12 year old son to support (the product of a fiesta based liason in Italy while learning to be a Cordon Bleu cook, as you do) Hebe juggles men like hot scones as her "syndicate" of gentlemen move in ever decreasing circles which is bound to end in them all running into one another at some point. Hinjinks and whatnot will ensue.

Hebe is supported by a lively group of characters including some feisty old ladies who are no strangers to intrigue and foreign liasons themselves. In addition there's Terry the French knicker wearing dilettante, Rory the mad hatter ( yes an actual milliner) and a dog called Feathers.

Mary is here to remind us that even posh people, old people and heaven forbid even your parents shag and sex is not something invented by the yoofs.

[Lyn Elliott · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read most of Mary Wesley's books at least once, and this one possibly twice before - but years ago.

The world situation is so dire at the moment that my need for comfort reading is high, and I thought Mary Wesley might fill the bill. Her books are always witty, often poignant and her heroines areunconventional survivors - a bit like Wesley herself.

Things work out ok in the end, which is what I want to feel right now.

[Caroline · Rating 3 out of 5]

Can a woman whose family holds a family conference to decide and plan her abortion manage successfully to steal away in the night and run away to make a life for herself and her unborn child? It appears so. Hebe lives in a quiet English village with her son, Silas, and manages by working as a private chef to a few elderly ladies for a few weeks at a time, and a prostitute to select men, a group she calls, her Syndicate. The latter career is of course, not a well known fact, and most of her clients, carefully chosen, communicate with her only through letters sent to a Pakistani store.

With her chosen lifestyle, Hebe lives a quiet but contented life, earning enough for the stiff tuition fees at Silas's private school.

Silas comes home for the holidays but goes off to spend 3 weeks with a friend whose family have invited him on a sailing vacation. As Hebe contemplates the change in plans, she decides to offer her cooking services to one of her elderly clients for the time that Silas will be away with his friend. Things start to unravel, when one of her clients learns that she is to be at his mother's friend's place, a rather shy nephew meets Hebe, a stranger meet with Silas and one of her clients becomes her friend.

Wonderfully humorous with a touch of whimsy.

[Elinor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mary Wesley didn't publish her first novel until she was 71 years old and broke -- and then went on to have a successful career. Readers loved her ironic voice and her open-minded attitude toward sex. In this novel, Hebe (a name taken from Greek mythology, the harnesser of peacocks) flees her upperclass home rather than submit to an abortion and makes her own way in the world. Her lifestyle is fascinating, and the cast of characters around her -- from teenagers to the elderly -- are quirky and delightful. The author wrote ten novels and I'll be reading them all.

[eghzarw · Rating 5 out of 5]

Я читаю ее романы в рэндомном порядке, и сюжетно они между собой никак не связаны, но такое впечатление, что героиня из предыдущих двух проснулась, встрепенулась, взяла себя в руки и наконец нормально организовала свою жизнь. Очаровательные (или жуткие) любовно выписанные персонажи второго плана, катарсис в финале, а главное -- заразительная joie de vivre. Хочется готовить, гулять, есть вкусную еду и вообще наслаждаться жизнью.

[Andrea Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Again Mary Wesley took me into a world that I have little or no knowledge of. Hebe the main character is a single mother with a talent for two things cooking and love making. She manages her life just fine with these two talents keeping her life in order, until there is an unexpected upset to the balance. There is so much spirit and love put into Mary Wesley's characters that you actually wish that you could sit down to coffee with them. I will be sure to reread this story again as it was another brilliant slice of life.

[Lucy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another reread. I am not sure how many times I have read it now -- at least three. I am not sure why the world and the values described in it are so familiar to me since I am not from England. But it all feels like home, not always in the nicest way.

[Joanne · Rating 2 out of 5]

This went from interesting, to annoying, to ridiculous.

[Theresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think I read almost all of Mary Wesley's books several years ago. This was one of the most entertaining.

[Awatif · Rating 1 out of 5]

سيئة جدا مثل فيلم تجاري سخيف وممل.
ماري ويسلي بإختصار هي دانييل ستيل النسخة الانجليزية.

[April Andruszko · Rating 4 out of 5]

an enjoyable light read. perehaps a few too many coincidences

[Nate C-K · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall, an enjoyable read with some sit-com-esque scenes and shenanigans. A good 'beach read' and nice way to pass the time. Be warned that you must read critically as there is a black character who is handled in a fairly offensive and frankly strange way. Also use of homophobic slurs for no good reason.

Firstly, it was written in the 80s and has not aged very well. The class problems are largely solved by making every character posh, or wanting to be posh. Motivations for being posh or trying to be posh are not really explored. Discussions of money are fairly candid and while that's refreshing it's also aged badly as I have never met anybody with live-in staff and I have RP.

The first third has so much dialogue I had to re-read pages when the speakers were clarified. The drip of information and web of relationships slowly builds in the middle third, but if you are paying attention, when a 'reveal' is made, you will ask 'didn't we find that out last chapter?'

The real issue that prevents a 4th star is the ending. Perhaps I am terribly modern, but the 'everyone gets coupled up' trope was overused even back when this was written. I would have liked Hebe to get a backbone and do something for herself, like open a restaurant. Women couldn't have everything back then, much like they can't today. That part aged well.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

هذه الرواية أُعجوبة ، إذ أنها كفكرة تبدو جيدة جداً ، ولكن عظمتها الحقيقية تقتبس من نور الكاتبة ، إذ أن ( mary wesley ) كانت قد تخطت السبعين تقريباً عند نشر الرواية ! ،
وهي الرواية السادسة لها ، إذ بدأت الكتابة في سن الستين ..

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الرواية مثيرة فعلاً ، مضحكة و مدهشة وأيضاً مخيفة ..
تأخذك لترى حيوات وتفاصيل كثيرة ، أنماط مختلفة من البشر بدون أن تزعجك بتفاصيل مُباشرة و كلام كثير ، هي تزرع الرؤى بداخلك فقط !..
لكنها ليست من نوع الكتب التي تأمل بإعادة قرائتها ، لكنها حتما لا تُنسى( ! )


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لا أفهم لما " الساقي " غيرت العنوان تماماً و اختارت آخر لا صلة له بالرواية !

( Harnessing Peacocks )

[Judy · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

Great Britain, before cell phones and computers

This reminded me of the way it feels to be the new kid on the block -- people to meet, connections to figure out, roles in the community ... all the things that slowly sort themselves out, given the time to do so. For the first several chapters, I kept flipping back to remind myself how each person connected with Hebe, the star of this story. At some point, I just gave up and read, and by the conclusion, everyone and everything fit together nicely.

Light reading, stress-free, likable characters, and even a little thought provoking. Refreshingly frank attitude toward sex and sexuality.

The title of the story is first mentioned on p 18: Hebe is the Latin name for Veronica. She harnessed peacocks.

shelved: Great Britain

[Danah · Rating 3 out of 5]

قرائتها لاني احب اختيارات دار الساقي ..قصة فتاة تركت اهلها بعد ان عرفو بحملها و قررت تربيه طفلها و العيش بمفردها و تمتهن وظيفة طاهية في العلن و عاهرة خاصة لكسب المال !!

[Gavin Lightfoot · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love immersing myself in the lives of Wesley's characters, definitely my comfort books.

[Peter Shaw · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wesley's 3rd of 10 published novel for adults, and for me, one of her top 3 or 4, whose small flaws (e.g. line- and paragraph-spacing - as raised in https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...) are really immaterial, given the quality of the read, the dialogue and plot. It's one of my favourite reads, fiction or non-fiction, of the last five years.

I liked this one so much, I bought the hardback edition (having read it in pb), such was my feeling that this is a "keeper"!

What to say, that doesn't give the game away?

Let's start here. The novel is hard to classify in genre. It has comic elements certainly, thriller and mystery elements too, and a lot of social criticism, explicit or - as more often with Wesley - implicit: for the reader to catch, interpret and make of as s/he sees fit.

But if a category is needed, perhaps the nearest is "personal adventure story".

It has quite a lot in common with the picaresque novels at the outset of the whole broad genre of long prose fiction.

Born into a cold and - to put it mildly - unsupportive family, a young woman breaks free and makes her own way through life by whatever means she can. She builds up her life and employment skills with the help of the more friendly people she chances across, testing whatever doors she can find open, esp. if they have relatively welcoming people at them. To make ends meet.

It is never a wholly safe or stable life, and presents many scrapes and precarious episodes.

The book is daring even for 1985 England, particularly in its candid inclusion of some of the - not universally socially acceptable - ways Hebe makes ends meet. (There is also quite a lot of frank demotic in this novel, as throughout Wesley's oeuvre. Hardly recommended for those of a prudish disposition ...)

There are of course just such morally adventurous female characters in the tradition, notably English 18thc novels. But, while it is - as always with this author - left to readers to reach their own moral or moralising conclusions (will you be as unremittingly harsh as many of Wesley's parental figures?), my own conclusion is that Hebe is presented as one of Wesley's outright heroines. Not merely one of her central female figures, but an admirable, inspiring figure.

However harshly she is dealt with, in childhood onwards, she always seeks to play fair with those she meets and, more or less, befriend her, as far as her often parlous lifestyle allows. She shows those paramount Wesleyan virtues of spirit, courage, resilience, fortitude, resourcefulness and surprisingly fair play, despite travails and vicissitudes experienced. When she can't take it, she moves on in her little car, trying to avoid damage.

Given the difficulties and obstructions placed in the path of a young woman trying to make her own way, under her own steam - not to mention the gauntlet of moral disapproval she constantly runs, and threats of showdown, exposure and ruin - this is clearly heroine-class behaviour in the eyes of the author. (And I have to say, mine too.)

Mary Wesley's novels generally are marked by a high degree of self-centred subjectivity on the part of the characters. Even the heroines.

The "moral" difference is often how far the self-centredness is damaging, even purposefully, callously damaging to others - to others even who are in one's care, parents and guardians towards children and wards - as opposed to an essential vital self-interest in finding viable ways to cope, to survive and where possible flourish despite adversity, opposition and not rarely, considerable malice. To me, Hebe certainly comes emphatically under the second definition.

And the subjectivity? It may be blindness (the hamartia of ancient tragedy). It is often often a marked degree of self-deception, usually inadvertent. Even this writer's most affectionately painted heroines habitually fool themselves, tend to imagine situations, characters, feelings that are not so, e.g. falling victim to wishful thinking, ignoring warning signs. This adds sparkle and hazard to the storylines. (The subjectivity of less admirable characters may be something closer to monstrous, grasping selfishness: with no regard whatsoever to the trauma caused to others! )

But of course, right or wrong, repugnant, admirable, acceptable or unfair play - all such verdicts on characters are ultimately left to Wesley's readers. She typically presents sky-high moral & emotional stakes: where any decision a character takes may have immense consequences. Those who may appear pleasant may have hidden skeletons; those who live on the margins may live by socially taboo codes, but appear in the end more honourable in their dealings with others. Wesley makes the reader work fairly hard to reach definitive assessments: and these may be complex.

By all accounts, "Wild Mary" herself was a free spirit. There is always mischief afoot also in her writing. Out to shock? That certainly too. Especially as regards sexual behaviour, and sexual choices.

There is cruel fun in evidence in places, including cruel ironies in the turns of the characters' lives. Exploitation, abandonment, deprivation, hurt and death are common.

A criticism sometimes levelled at this author is that she is wantonly malicious: playing nasty tricks on even her most admirable characters, and creating some unsympathetic traits in most - when not painting wholly unsympathetic personalities, some of whom are downright alienating.

I think this misunderstands Wesley's ways as a writer, also her intentions as an author. She creates complexities, of plot, and in characterisation. Some characters fall under the worst possible variations of "self-centredness" and "subjectivity", as discussed above. There are some out-and-out villains, though not many. But many, even the best. characters have weaknesses, in perception, psychology and social uncertainty (often related to background and circumstances!)

One might therefore argue that an "alienated" reader - who finds all the characters unsympathetic, and no plots satisfactory - was possibly looking for something too comforting, too unproblematic, too pastoral or bucolic than these 10 novels.

Mary Wesley takes a puckish, ludic approach to the figures and storylines she creates. Even towards her most engaging central characters - heroines, for all their limitations.

She set them loose in their lives. To behave, conform, wriggle, or play (fair or foul) as they might.

And as readers we can consider how they go about their lives, how they act, how they treat others, without necessarily being fixed in our judgments between one extreme or the other. A great advantage of literature is that it is always simulation: for example, no real person actually gets hurt.

But also, it is experimentation, and test. Part of Wesley's puckish mischief appears to be to ask: Well, reader, will you be any less harsh, less condemning, than the often jealous society we see in this novel?

There is - in Harnessing Peacocks as elsewhere - a strong sense of a world without a central guiding principle (the more devout characters, the pillars of society, tend to emerge as the greatest hypocrites and exploiters of others in any case, and might not follow that principle if it were evident!). A world without stable, reliable, universal meaning.

That world often appears to buffet the best of them - best, I mean, in terms of fair play & honesty (however unconventional, transgressive of that rarely fair society's norms), as well as affecting, warm & for all their faults, likeable in personality - it appears to buffet the best the worst of all, as they attempt to build a life of their own, to create from considerable chaos some existence of cohesion, coherence, reliable fixed points, and affection.

And so it is with Hebe. To me, one of Wesley's most endearing of all characters.

[Grace Harwood · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Mary Wesley's work - it is so easy to read and is always a witty journey with engaging characters. I've read most of her books and I always keep them after because they stand reading again and again. This is a case in point - this is the second time I've read this book and it is lovely, although it's not as strong as some of her other ones (e.g Part of the Furniture, The Camomile Lawn). The story follows Hebe, pregnant and hiding in a cupboard, listens to her stuffy upper-class grandparents with her horsey sisters and their insufferable husbands, plotting an abortion for her. She runs out into the night. Twelve years later she has a wonderful son, and a career as a cook to well-to-do ladies and an upper-class prostitute. It's a wonderful premise and there are some great moments in the book - the problem I had with it was at the end when, in a chance meeting with her son's father, she just gives it all up to go and live with him. Also, the reader doesn't really get a sense of who Hebe is - she seems to be all things to every person; but that might have been deliberate on the part of the author.

The best character in it was Silas, Hebe's son, and his wonderful performance whilst on holiday with the insufferable Jennifer and her family in the Scilly Isles was fab.

There is a fantastic class commentary in this; just who are the "right kind of people" and why are they so awful? Me being from the plebeian underclass could never know the answers to these questions. I can only sit back and gape in wonder at it all; asking myself in bemusement, is helicopter the only way to get to the Scilly Isles? Well I never knew that. Fantastic for putting your foot out of bed and seeing how the other half lives.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is close to being my favourite novel by Wild Mary. It has a tight cast of characters that interact in a series of scenes that are a little like a French farce. Most of the characters are 'nice people' or 'the right sort', and a fair proportion of those are not particularly nice (but they are the right sort). The book was written long after Mary Wesley concluded that she had wasted a lot of time sleeping with Old Etonians, and it reflects her conclusions about that class.

It's a funny book, funnier than most French farces. It celebrates life-changing decisions made on the spur of a moment over carefully calculated decisions that can be regretted for a lifetime. It finds joy in sunlight, in the smell of coffee, good food and sex without (or with) guilt. It's an amazingly optimistic book from the author of Jumping the Queue.

[Pamela Mclaren · Rating 4 out of 5]

A young woman finds herself pregnant and surprised that her family aren't going to be supportive (in fact, they plan to get her an abortion without consulting her), she runs away and 13 years later, the book really begins. Because Hebe is living life on her terms as a cook and a "tart," and supporting her son, Silas, surrounded by a loving group of people who are both clients and friends. Everything goes well until the separate strands of her life become tangled — her son goes on a trip to an island with a family that confuses and irritates him, Hebe goes off to cook for one of her clients and two of her lovers not only find out about each other, they come to face to face.

This is a loving book about people you will care about and wish the best. Its a whole different book from what I've read before and I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it.

[Patricia]

The main character, Hebe, has found an interesting and unconventional way of supporting her son as he attends an expensive boarding school in England.
She holds her life in tight control but her system becomes unravelled and she has to open up to herself and her son. Some wonderful old characters and some shockers. I enjoyed the book.

[Katie Parry · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought at the start that I was going to love this. Interesting premise. Interesting, charming characters. But from about half way the plot got progressively sillier, and the characters less and less believable.

[Mary Crotty · Rating 1 out of 5]

pointless

[Meli Nelson · Rating 4 out of 5]

hebe you legend.
justice for rory!! he was way better than jim huxtable!
also louisa fox, what an icon

[إيمان الشريف · Rating 3 out of 5]

صدرت هذه الرواية عام 1985 وتحولت إلى فيلم سينمائي عام 1993، وصدرت ترجمتها العربية عن دار الساقي عام 2017. وهي تروي قصة "هيبي"، الفتاة
البريطانية يتيمة الأبوين، والتي تعيش مع جديها، ولديها ثلاث أخوات متزوجات. تسافر "هيبي" إلى إيطاليا للإقامة لفترة قصيرة عند إحدى العائلات لتعلم اللغة الإيطالية، وهناك تخطئ مع شاب ما وتعود إلى بلادها حاملاً. يتخذ جداها وأزواج أخواتها القرار نيابة عنها ويحددون موعداً مع ال��بيب لإجراء إجهاض، لكنها تقرر الاحتفاظ بجنينها وتفر من المنزل. تلجأ إلى سيدة عجوز عملت في الماضي سكرتيرة لدى جدها، فتؤويها السيدة إلى أن تضع طفلها بسلام. تنتقل للعيش مع ابنها في منزل قريب، ولتتدبر أمور عيشها، تعمل في مهنتين، طاهية، وعاهرة. وتتوالى الأحداث.

الرواية بشكل عام جيدة. أحب الروايات الاجتماعية التي تجد نفسك في بدايتها ضائعاً مع كثرة الشخصيات، لكن ما إن تصل نصفها حتى تكون قد حفظت اسم كل شخصية وأبرز ملامحها.

هناك نقاط ضعف لو عملت الكاتبة على تحسينها لجاءت الرواية أقوى بكثير. مثلاً الأسئلة الوجودية كانت قليلة جداً وعلى استحياء. من أنا؟ وهل اتخذت القرارات الصحيحة في حياتي؟أيضاً أزعجتني جداً كثرة الحوارات.

[Sarah Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wesley is a good novelist, and this book is somewhat less improbable than the last one I read. Hebe, the protagonist, is treated cruelly by her grandparents and the rest of her family after becoming pregnant, and runs away to maintain her pregnancy. She supports her son through a combination of exclusive one on one extremely good cordon blue cooking and equally exceptional sex, which she maintains total control of, to the extent of not letting her clients schedule it or contact her directly. Hebe is the bridal goddess, as the book’s title implies, and Hebe’s relationships throughout the book remain virginal because she is autonomous. She enjoys sex, just as she enjoys cooking, and charges a lot for both.
Her son Silas doesn’t much enjoy the prep school which much of this money pays for. He manages in the end to tell his mother this.
The book’s end is, otherwise, a bit too pat.

[Alicia Tompkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Published in 1985, this novel set in England and by a British author stands the test of time. The protagonist flees her upper middle family home in face of huge opposition to her pregnancy by someone she can't or won't share the identity. Flash forward to 11-12 years later, Hebe, the protagonist, has created a life for herself with friends and customers to whom she is close while at the same time ferociously guarding her privacy. As we we enter the scene, the past which she has buried so deeply is starting to surface and her various separate lives start to come together. Clever and enjoyable to read.

The life of the author is almost as interesting as her book, so check that out if you read her book

[Khader · Rating 2 out of 5]

لا شك ان هذه الرواية تحمل قصة جميلة، ولكنها كانت قصة مشتتة اغلب الوقت ولم تستطيع ان تجذبني لكل تفاصيلها. لقد وجدتها مملة احياناً ولربما تكمن المشكلة في الترجمة التي لم تكن بهذه الجودة .

هناك حبكة جيدة للرواية، ولكني لم اجدها ممتعة ولا حتى مقنعة ببعض التفاصيل، رغم ان الصفحات الاخيرة كانت كفلية بازالة بعض الامور التي تركت غير واضحة ولكني لم اعجب بشخصيات الرواية ولا حتى بطريقة تعاملهم مع الشخصية الرئيسية "هيبي" ولا حتى طريقتها هي في الحياة بصفحات "حامض حلو" كانت بحاجة الى ان تكون واقعية اكثر، قريبة اكثر من مجريات الحياة اليومية، ولكني وجدتها غريبة وتتصرف بغرابة لا تحدث عادة.


ما يشفع للرواية انها ملكت بداية جيدة جدا، ثم ضاعت في المنتصف، وعادت وتماسكت في الصفحات الاخيرة.

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this years ago and re-read it several times.

Harnessing Peacocks is an English novel of manners turned on its ear. Hebe is such an interesting heroine: strong, smart, and intensely private. After learning she's pregnant at 16, her grandfather and brothers-in-law arrange for an abortion. In order to keep her baby, she escapes her very proper home and sets out on her own. We officially meet her when her baby Silas is 12 and she has arranged her life quite neatly between Silas and freelance jobs she does cooking and 'tarting.'

It's a bit difficult to say why I like this so much - I've read quite a few of Wesley's books and this is my favorite. Wesley has a quiet way of introducing the storyline so it emerges slowly and thoughtfully. I love the tiny details she includes. Although she's obviously one of the 'right sort of people' she gently pokes fun at them. I think it's Hebe and the very slowly emerging love story that make it my favorite of Wesley's. And even though the ending is quite sufficient for the story, I do wish that she had given us just a little bit longer with the HEA.

[Artie LeBlanc · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved the lightness of the writing, which despite its lightness produces some detailed and convincing characters.

When I say convincing, I mean that they convince within the genre. The setting and castlist are resolutely English, upper middle, effortlessly superior. Remarkably, despite this, they are almost all likeable people.

The plot depends rather heavily on coincidence: but it is so much fun, that I didn't care.