Jim Redlake

Francis Brett Young's new novel has a wider scope than any he has hitherto written. It's setting covers not only the Shires and Welsh marshes, but also Mayfair and Bloomsbury, and as an incident the theatre of war in German East Africa. It's characters (there are no less than ninety four recognizable dramatis personae) range from "country" magistrates to men of letters and the humbler citizens of a back street in London. Against this background, the central figure Jim Redlake proceeds from adolescence to maturity as a type of normal English youth and manhood.