Dolly's war - Peter Tinniswood

Tinniswood relaunches his bestselling career with HarperCollins.

Peter Tinniswood is not only a bestselling novelist, but a hugely popular writer for television, the stage and radio. Dolly's War is a somewhat longer, somewhat (though not totally!) more serious work than his more recent novels and makes a new departure in his illustrious career.

Like a cross between Decline and Fall and The Lord of the Flies, Dolly's War is the outrageous story of Lygon House Private School for Progressive Young People and its evacuation to the West Indies during the Second World War. When their ship is torpedoed by a U-boat, the pupils and their variously hopeless, eccentric teachers are washed up on the jungle shore of Central America, where they survive as best they can. Somehow, the reader always knows that the appalling but endearing Dolly Bradman, owner of the school, will be one of those who live to return to the heart of the Empire.

In Dolly's War, Peter Tinniswood has written one of the most entertaining novels of recent years.