'Edward is living in a world he can't afford and to which he doesn't belong'. At the start of the novel, Edward comes across as a bit of a good-hearted buffoon. Treated like a doormat by his so-called friend Robert, and pining after Robert's girlfriend Stanza. I felt a bit sorry for him, to start with. However, things soon take a sinister turn and Edward proves that he is not a victim. I definitely got Saltburn vibes from this one. Quite disturbing, but an excellent read nevertheless.

Although The Kellerby Code references both Brideshead Revisited and Wodehouse's Jeeves and Wooster stories, the main protagonist -- Edward -- reminded me of neither (a bad) Jeeves nor (an unsexy) Charles Ryder, but of Dr Faraday from Sarah Waters' The Little Stranger. Like Faraday, Edward displays an obsessive love of his posh friend's possessions: signet ring, oak kitchen worktops, Church's shoes, stately pile. These things are representative of a well-inhabited class position formed by centuries of inequality. And like Faraday, Edward insinuates himself into the fabric of his aristocratic friend's lives, becoming a cuckoo in their privileged nest. Here lies the novel's thriller element. The reader follows Edward's mental unravelling AND his gleeful invasion into territory forbidden to the likes of him.

In the grounds of Kellerby House, Edward Jevons has just found a human mandible – with an amalgam filling – which he smoothly pockets. Whose mandible? Why is Edward unsurprised but careful to hide it from his staff? What exactly is his position in the household? These are the questions which underpin the plot of this book, and to answer them we have to step back into his past. Edward has two close friends, Robert and Stanza. Like them he went to a public school; but only he was on a scholarship. Like them he is a Cambridge graduate; but only he has no family money, no ancestral connections that might have eased his path thereafter. He’s living in Stanza’s London flat, but there is no romantic or sexual relationship between them – at least not on her part, a boy can dream. In fact living in a bit of a dream is one of his defining characteristics. The other is subservience; when he is with them he is continually anticipating and fulfilling their needs, when he isn’t with them he is either tutoring (his only source of income) or carrying out tasks for them. Stanza, who does some sort of office job, calls him Jeeves, and Robert, an up-and-coming theatre director, uses him, more or less inadvertently, as a valet. Stanza’s extensive family estate surrounds Kellerby House and the three of them quite often visit it. Even there, Edward continues to act as a general factotum to the other two. He is devastated when they tell him that they are getting engaged, but conceals this emotion and continues in his deferential role. When it turns out that Robert’s reputation is endangered by an incident in his past, Edward is happy to step in to assist. And so the scene is set. This is a psychological mystery, a study of Edward, his foibles, his insecurities, his disintegration. It is also a crime story and a murder story, of course – that mandible has to have belonged to someone in the recent past! The style of writing initially feels odd – too clever, too mannered, too pretentious – but then it is trying to convey Edward’s inward turmoil as he tries to navigate the casually monied world of his friends while carrying a massive ‘Estate Kid’ chip on his gentle giant shoulder. There is also a tendency to use somewhat obscure words; “skeuomorph”, for example. The style requires a certain level of commitment by the reader, who has to keep going through the early stages of the book, before getting to the meat. It does pick up pace later. As an aside, the use of the word “code” in the title seems odd, since there is no evidence of such a thing in the story. I would like to thank NetGalley, the publishers and the author for providing me with a draft proof copy for the purpose of this review.

Hmmm - how do I feel about this book? It's hard to express, really - especially as I just watched Saltburn and there's significant crossover. Part of me loves it - the characters are very, very real. They are also pretty much all annoying - selfish, frivolous, self-seeking, or clearly in the grip of a mental disorder and in need of help. There's no lightness about this novel, no moments where any character is shown to be other than self-serving, even our mentally unstable hero isn't acting out of the kindness of his heart, but to keep the shadows at bay. Those shadows threaten to overwhelm, with increasing power as the story travels its path, and even then the eventual climax came as a shock, and left me feeling quite out of kilter. I guess we're directed by almost every novel we read to expect everything tied up into neat little bows, and that certainly doesn't happen here. Brilliant character portraits of fairly unpleasant, shallow people actually quite easy to recognise and understand, who you feel a little sorry for, at the same time as wanting to shout at! Gripping, but unsettling.

Never read anything by this author before and I agree with other reviewers it takes a while to get into. I am not really sure what to make of the book. It is amusing in places but not as much as I anticipated from the synopsis.