Spurious Games

En sjakkroman fra en spennende og litt utradisjonell forfatter, som er en pensjonert universitetslærer og også har deltatt i en sjakkolympiade for Fiji-øyene.

Forlagets egen omtale:

A local chess player is discovered dead, his untimely end seeming suspicious. Detective Inspector John Logos of Cornwall’s St Borstal Constabulary is called in to investigate what turns out to be a serial killer running amok in the sedate contemplative world of Cornish chess. The detectives quickly find themselves as pawns in the game of an arrogant mastermind calling himself ‘The Turk’ who taunts them with chess-related clues. Baffled, they call in Caradoc Pritchard, an eccentric Welsh Professor, serial iconoclast and expert in forensic profiling. Together they must work against the clock to predict the killer’s next move.

As the action comes to a dramatic climax only one player can win, but only if he avoids stalemate.

A literary novel of ideas masquerading as a whodunit, Spurious Games exhibits a consistently droll sense of humour that belies its essential seriousness as an extended riff on authenticity. Despite its roots in chess, there are a number of important ‘side shows’, all treated with equal ironic irreverence.

Om forfatteren:

David Jenkins is a retired Professor who has occupied a variety of chairs including at the University of Warwick (Arts Education) and the University of the South Pacific (Education and Psychology). He is a keen chess player who when a lot younger played for Fiji in the 1994 Moscow Chess Olympiad, a memorable experience, although not quite the honour it sounds (think Eddy the Eagle). His main claim to fame is as a qualitative evaluator of social programs. His report on the pan-European training program for youth leaders usng non-formal methods (TALE) was named as the 2011 'Outstanding Evaluation of the Year' by the American Evaluation Association ('I Could a TALE Unfold').

David is a painter and regular cartoonist, currently living in Cornwall where he is President of the Cornwall Chess Association. Although widely published as an academic, at the Open University and elsewhere, Spurious Games is his first novel.

David has designed an informative website in support of his novel Spurious Games with the domain name spuriousgames.org It includes excerpts, a gallery of images and comments around the themes of the novel as well as other writings.