Bachelors

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A barrister, a "priest", a detective, a lovelorn Irishman, a handwriting expert, a heinous spiritual medium -- the very British bachelors of Muriel Spark's supreme 1960 novel come in every stripe.First found contentedly chatting in their London clubs and shopping at Fortnum's, the cozy bachelors (as any Spark reader might guess) are not set to stay cozy for long. Soon enough, the men are variously tormented -- defrauded or stolen from; blackmailed or pressed to attend horrid seances -- and then plunged, all together, into the nastiest of lawsuits. At the center of that suit hovers pale, blank Patrick Seton, the medium. Meanwhile, horrors of every size plague the poor bachelors -- from the rising price of frozen peas ("Your hand's never out of your pocket") to epileptic fits, forgeries, spiritualists foaming with protoplasm, and murder. And every horror delights: each is lit up by Spark's uncanny wit -- at once malicious, funny, and deadly serious. The Bachelors shows "the most gifted and innovative British novelist" (The New York Times) at her wicked best.