Rating: 4/5
Review:
Gripping and thoughtful
A lot about Three Hours was excellent. I found it very gripping and
well done a lot of the time, but it did have its flaws in the end.
This is the story of
a school siege by initially unknown gunmen. The school is in an
isolated part of north Somerset and it is snowing heavily, giving the
story extra atmosphere which Rosamund Lupton does very well. It
begins dramatically with the shooting of the headteacher and from
there we get several points of view as it unfolds: various students
including a refugee from Syria with PTSD, a parent, a police officer
and so on. These are all excellently handled and feel very real so
that even filling in the back-stories, a device which can sometimes
feel very clumsy and tired, seems natural to the narrative. Lupton
also writes very well much of the time; as an example, capturing the
intensity of teenage love (before the siege has begun), “A white
snowflake landed on a fiery gold strand of her hair and for a moment
he saw the beauty of it,” which I thought very evocative and
there’s plenty more of a similar quality.
For much of its
length this was a five-star read for me – gripping, exciting,
intelligent and thoughtful. In the last third or so, though, there
began to be just a few too many unlikely contrivances for the sake of
a tense plot which weakened it for me. Also, there is suddenly some
rather heavy-handed political evengelising. I agree entirely with
what Lupton is saying and she is making very important points, but it
did feel a little clumsy and over-polemical to me.
That said, Three
Hours is still very good. It is very well researched, I found it
hard to put down and Lupton’s thoughtful and sensitive portraits of
her characters are excellent. Recommended.
(My thanks to
Penguin Books for an ARC via NetGalley.)
No comments:
Post a Comment