THEY KNEW MR KNIGHT

The Blakes are an ordinary family: Celia looks after the house and Thomas works at the family engineering business in Leicester. The book begins when he meets Mr Knight, a financier as crooked as any on the front pages of our newspapers nowadays; and tracks his and his familys swift climb and fall.Part of the cause of the ensuing tragedy is Celias innocence - blinkered by domesticity, she and her children are the victim of the turbulence of the outside world (Postscript); but finally, through quiet tenacity and the refusal to let go of certain precious things, goodness does win out (Afterword). And the "TLS" wrote: The portraits in the book are fired by Mrs Whipples article of faith - the supreme importance of people. A Book Society Choice, shortlisted for the Femina-Vie Heureuse Prize, the second Dorothy Whipple novel to be reprinted by Persephone Books is wonderfully well-written in a clear and straightforward style; yet this real treat ("Sunday Telegraph") is far more subtle than it at first appears.