More Than You Can Say

By: Paul Torday

Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble

A late-night gambling session ends in a bet for Richard Gaunt: can he walk to Oxford by lunchtime the next day? Gaunt sets off, and as morning breaks and the dreaming spires near, his evening's winnings look set to double. But when men in a Jeep reverse into him, scooping him off the roadside, Gaunt enters a yet stranger world.

Taken to a country house, he is kept hostage by a man with impeccable manners, Mr Khan. Traumatised by a tour of duty in Iraq, Gaunt's life has collapsed around him. His behaviour drove away his childhood sweetheart and put even debt-collecting jobs beyond his reach. So when the mysterious captor offers Gaunt 10,000 pounds to marry Adeena - a beautiful girl kept in the house against her will - he decides to accept. After initial suspicion, Adeena realises that Gaunt is her only chance, and the pair forge a plan of escape.

©2011 Paul Torday (P)2011 Orion Publishing Group Limited

Not a comedy!

I won't give it away, but this book is not about what you think it's about. Both the title and the playing-card symbols used on the artwork seem to be part of the misdirection.
Furthermore, it's told like a comedy, but turns out to be thought-provoking and disturbing. That dichotomy is one of the things I liked about the book, yet at the end of the day, it feels misleading.
Jonathan Keeble is one of my favorite readers, and this is another fine example of his work.

Mediocre Book

The story caught my interest at the beginning but then it became a bit predictable.
The narrator, on the other hand, was excellent.
I chose this book because I enjoyed Torday's "Salmon Fishing in the Yemen."
Unfortunately, this book was not up to the stature of that book.