Brat Farrar

Product Information

L. Konigsberg's Father's Arcane Daughter, someone approaches a family claiming to be the child who disappeared many years before. Alec's idea is for Brat to impersonate Simon's missing twin, Patrick, and, as the elder brother, claim the trust and the estate. Brat escape the trap he has created for himself and make it into a world where he really does belong and can be loved for himself?

The Ashbys are wealthy by other means with no money problems and so do not need to raise horses, the impostor who plays Tony is not a long-lost cousin and the character of Uncle Charles does not appear. In fact, for me the precariousness of the situation adds tension and, although the ending was not a huge surprise, the way all the loose ends are tied up is very satisfying. So it’s one of those stories that you can’t stop until you put it down, and then you find you don’t really need to rush to go back to it. He had had horses like Timber, and friends and family, and a belonging-place, and it had all meant nothing to him. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others.Sure, there is a mysterious death, but the tension doesn’t come from the mystery of how Patrick Ashby died, instead, it’s largely focused on Brat’s attempt to pass as an Ashby and his tense relationship with Simon, Patrick’s twin. The stranger, Brat Farrar, has been carefully coached on Patrick's mannerisms, appearance and every significant detail of Patrick's early life, up to his thirteenth year when he disappeared and was thought to have drowned himself. I enjoy books in various genres, but especially literary fiction, literature in translation, historical fiction, history, short stories and travel writing and poetry. Aunt Bee is especially eager to believe Brat’s story and the fact that he looks like an Ashby helps to convince everyone in their immediate circle that Patrick is the long-lost heir.

Much of the book is kind of slow and almost boring (not quite) but the last few chapters are superb and I just may read a few more of Tey’s books.But – and it is a very large ‘but’ – Brat senses that Simon Ashby has his doubts, and they soon reach a disturbing kind of equanimity.