I requested this because I really loved the first book 'Gentlemen and Players' and this one picks up not long after that story ends. Joanne Harris is a fascinating person and although her books are hit or miss for me, the more reality based ones I usually really enjoy.
I won't go into plot details really for this one to avoid spoilers for the first book, but we are once again in the setting of St Oswald's school and there are some new shenanigans with well known characters happening again. This one wasn't quite as good as the first one in my opinion but I still really enjoyed it, especially the beautiful writing.

In this excellent novel set in a Grammar School (in 2005), we follow set-in-his-ways Latin master Roy Straitley. Straitley is confronted by shifting mores and approaches to education, while stubbornly trying to resist these forces of progress and change.

The novel also alternates with a thread set in 1981, about the student mentioned in the synopsis - "A boy capable of bad things." We don't know exactly who the boy is, or how these two threads will connect.

Harris is a fantastic author, and DIFFERENT CLASS is an excellent examination of these characters she's created. It is a story of prejudice, a psychological thriller, and the ways in which the world changes and confronts hidebound and stubborn narratives that refuse to shift.

Definitely recommended.

I've had this on my TBR pile for ages - initially drawn to it by the author as I loved her earlier work.

This is in a different vein to the books I've read by her before. There is a book before this one set in the same school but I hadn't read it and it doesn't seem to matter to the story if you haven't.

Set in 2005 with flipping to 1981 Latin master Roy Straitley annoyed me at first. He will not read emails, instead he has them printed and put in his pigeon hole in the staff room until they are removed in favour of workstations. I encountered some of this in the past but it was earlier than this - maybe that is what riled me. The next thing was that Mr Straitley loves to have a little fun using Latin which as someone who never took Latin was lost on me. I did look some of it up, but it got that it was too long winded to do so.

The book has a narration set in 1981 by a pupil - but we don't know their identity. I guessed and was wrong! I began to lose my grip on who was who as for most of the book the boys in the school are referred to by their given names, but then when the pupils narrate they use nicknames. It all just got a bit confusing.

However, a bit like lines or detention I was not going to let the book beat me and I stuck with it. I was glad I did, because when it all began to come together it was really a great tense thriller. Getting to this part had felt a little protracted though.

I'm giving this book 3 out of 5 stars. My thanks to Netgalley for an ARC to review.

When the past and the present cross their paths, it might be not without the sparkles and consequences.
Partly psychological novel, partly mystery, partly "just" a piece of life. But written by a masteress of pen.

Roy Straitley has been teaching Latin for 30 years, dedicating all his life to the St Oswald’s school and the boys whom he has been teaching and caring for "in loco parentis" - in the place of parents. He has been weathering his solitary life in the bubble of his own making (yet he is not stupid, silly nor blind to the world, just choosing his own kind of world to live in) and he has been fulfilled by this. Even in spite of the occasional ugly incidents from the past (like the Harry Clarke affair). But now, the times are changing. A new Head of school is appointed - his old pupil, the one Johnny Harrington his teacher has always had the uneasy feelings about. The boy of strange influence, the boy capable of even more fearsome things. And so the old world and the new one crosses their swords.
And yet, might the progress be the way backwards? Might the old affairs hide the different conclusions? Might the evil lurk somewhere else?

I have mixed feelings about this book.
From the writing skills point - this is a masterpiece. I have truly enjoyed the vocabulary, the ironical and witty humour, the musings of wise men, the twists and plots.
From the mystery lover point - I have not been expecting that twist/s! Very wise. But another psychopath in the novel? Meh. But still - very wise.
And yet - there is certain undercurrent, where I feel manipulated. All of the good characters (or at least the main ones) are "open-minded", all of the baddies (or at least the main ones) have afflictions towards homosexuality (mainly Church-inflicted). This feels as not objective and the motif truly gets old for me.

But I very much like Roy Straitley. Straight man, truly - a bit unsure of his caring nature, a bit blind towards the hidden character features, a bit old-school - yet so very kind, wise and amusing in his musings! I almost wish to have him as my grandfather (but Roy is not a grandfatherly figure and I am sure he would be shocked by such a wish! :)). Yet he is one of my favourite characters of this year and I am sure he will stay with me for long.

And I love the school atmosphere here. I have never been thinking about the British internate school environment - and this has been most enlightening book, both on good and the bad parts of the environment. Now I truly need to find my other resource - Rudyard Kipling's Stalky and Co. (most recommended book!).
And I was invited to think about the oldschool values again, the values I have been holding so high when a young scout - I truly need to think and more about that.