The White Devil: A NovelJustin Evans
Harper, May 2011
ISBN: 978-0061728273
Set in a four-hundred-year-old boys' boarding school in London, a chilling gothic thriller by the author of the critically acclaimed A Good and Happy Child . . . A fierce and jealous ghost . . . A young man's fight for his life . . .
Justin Evans has given us a beautifully written gothic thriller both intelligent and bone chilling. Andrew Taylor's on his last chance with his family. His father has sent him to the Harrow, an elite English school, to finish out his senior year. For centuries Harrow has been a school home for the elite, including Lord Byron. Things go badly from the first day when Andrew finds the only young man who'd befriended him dead. He can't tell people he's seen a white figure over that body. And, soon that white figure is haunting him.
The grim atmosphere in The White Devil takes on a life of its own. The dreary and damp weather, while often construed as a cliche about London weather, truly does come to mirror the mood of the characters, their hopelessness, and despair. The rain represents their frustrations at the lack of understanding and confusion about what is truly occurring. Mr. Evans executes this idea of the backdrop becoming a secondary character in a novel brilliantly, bringing to the story a very old-fashioned, Gothic feel that works brilliantly with the plot itself.
Andrew Taylor and Piers Fawkes, as the two main characters, are uniquely flawed but so well-suited to the story. Both have flawed pasts and are given the opportunity to grow beyond their flaws. Yet, the reader never knows whether each character will do so. The reader's inability to predict either character's behavior or reactions only adds to the confusion and growing dread. Combined with the atmosphere and historical elements, this unpredictability succeeds at keeping a reader breathlessly on edge up through the very last lines.
Evans cleverly uses both fact and fiction as background for this ghost story. The title of the book comes from the Jacobean play The White Devil and in the story pale skinned Harness acted in that play in the nineteenth century. Evans' depiction of both modern day Harrow and the school in the early 1800's seem very genuine and the characters Andrew encounters are well drawn and believable. This is a very readable page turner that ends with a suitably disturbing mood.
JUSTIN EVANS is a digital media executive based in New York City where he lives with his family. He received a BA in English from Columbia University and a MBA in Finance from NYU Stern. His first novel, A Good and Happy Child, was named a Best Book of 2007 by the Washington Post, was translated into six languages, and optioned by a major film studio.
ISBN: 9780061728273; ISBN10: 0061728276; Imprint: Harper; On Sale: 5/10/2011; Format: Hardcover; Pages: 384; $24.99
