Jeeves and the Leap of Faith

by Ben Schott

[annieb123]

Originally published on my blog: Nonstop Reader.

Jeeves and the Leap of Faith is a new Wodehouse homage novel featuring Jeeves & Wooster by Ben Schott. Released 15th Oct 2020 by Penguin Random House UK on their Hutchinson imprint, it's 352 pages and available in hardcover, audio, and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately.

Given the dreary, soul-grinding, wearying mess that is the state of the world today, I've depended more than ever on the respite offered by true pleasure reading. I've found over the last year that I've tended toward cookery books (since I have time and always fancied learning to cook), light fantasy, cozy mysteries, and other lightreading. I've been so thankful for Mr. Schott's brilliant homages to the (previously) inimitable Wodehouse that I've read and re-read both the canonical P.G. Wodehouse and the new books several times over the previous months.

Every time I've picked up Schott's new Jeeves & Wooster books I've noticed something new I'd missed in previous reads. The pacing is perfect, the wit is rapier keen, and the dialogue pitch perfect. This book could not possibly be better or offered at a better time. The author's grasp of Wodehouse's writing is sometimes eerily precise with the added codicil of his being able to lampoon both the interwar period in Britain *and* current events without bashing it over the reader's head. This works perfectly well as a standalone. It (as the prior volume, Jeeves and the King of Clubs) ends on something of a cliff-hanger, so I am assuming and hoping there's more in store in the near future.

Brilliant and brilliantly funny, and I say, it's a civilised antidote to the current unpleasantness, what?

Five stars. Looking forward to many many more.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.