Not only a brilliantly fluent storyteller but also an ironic commentator on the world scene

Shute was a brilliant storyteller and a terrific example for any writer

As a novelist, Nevil Shute goes from strength to strength, experimenting, drawing out life as he sees it, and setting it before us in ordered pattern...The Chequer Board is a notable novel

Blessed with an unaffected poplar touch, Shute has come close to the sentiment of his readers not only through a very genuine quality of sympathy but also through a singular ease and liveliness of topical invention...he is a storyteller of an uncommonly veracious stamp, whose performance is more remarkable that his quiet and refreshing modest airs might suggest

A happy knack endows this story with a character who is slightly greater than life-size. It proves once again how the ordinary, the average, the season-ticket holder sitting next to you, can still, in the hands of an expert, furnish the very stuff of literature

Impossible to put down

Delicious fun

Moves with a swift comic logic . . . An innovative and imaginative and intricate plot . . .welds Wolfe's descriptions of dinner parties, restaurant games, Wall Street trading, and courthouse chaos into more than a tour de force

Acerbically funny

Still very funny and smartly written a good 20 years after it was first published

Dense with research and bulging with bombast. Yet, it has to be admitted, it's also great fun

I read this novel at the end of the 1980s when greed and excess were rife, and the merger barons were making loads of money. As someone working in the City, I loved how it perfectly captured the voraciously materialistic mood. Wolfe portrays his characters with wit and accuracy.

A page-turner