Ventures into the Spanish past
The complex plots of C. J. Sansom’s novel revolve around the adventures in Spain during the civil war and its aftermath of three old boys of a fictional public school. Harry Brett comes from an army family, prospers at school and is elected a fellow of a Cambridge college. Bernie Piper is a working-class scholarship boy who regards public schools as machines for grinding out compliant servants of bourgeois capitalism. Leaving in disgust, he joins the Communist party, volunteers for the International Brigades and is presumed killed at the battle of Jarama in February 1937. Sandy Forsyth, son of a bishop, detests school as restricting his activities on the racetracks