Spurious Games

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Pub Date 28 Jul 2020 | Archive Date 16 Sep 2020

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Description

When a local chess player is discovered dead, 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 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, and together they must work against the clock to predict the killer’s next move.

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.

When a local chess player is discovered dead, 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...


A Note From the Publisher

David Jenkins’ career has spanned the Open University, Warwick and the South Pacific. The American Evaluation Association awarded him ‘2011 Evaluation of the Year’ for his study of a European youth workers training initiative. An ex-race walker, more sedately he played chess for Fiji in the 1994 Moscow Olympiad.

David Jenkins’ career has spanned the Open University, Warwick and the South Pacific. The American Evaluation Association awarded him ‘2011 Evaluation of the Year’ for his study of a European youth...


Available Editions

EDITION Ebook
ISBN 9781838598259
PRICE US$4.99 (USD)
PAGES 200

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Average rating from 4 members


Featured Reviews

Spurious Games offers an interesting, unexpected read. The author is writing on a number of levels, satirical, historical, plot-driven mystery, social commentary. This is something I rarely say, but—I am absolutely sure I didn't get as much as I might have out of this title. I was engaged by the central narrative, but could tell that I was missing asides and references to topics I'm not familiar with.

In all, this title is an engaging, but frustrating read.

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I felt the story was amusing, especially with the uncommon names and terms such as Professor of Psychology and Plagiarism, Professor of Money Laundering, Julian Assange Solutions, Chubby Checker and etc. The novel was written with an unusual choice of words, or maybe my limited vocabulary is unable to catch up with the author's high-level vocabulary. Nevertheless, I can sense the author is an extremely knowledgeable person who has extensive knowledge in various fields. I might not understand some of the histories mentioned in this book, somehow, I quite admire the author's brilliance and his expertise in chess.

To be honest, I almost want to give up this book until it reaches the probability theory and Nash Equilibrium, which is something that I learned when I was in university. I wasn't really good at that subject, but at least it helps me a bit to understand the story. The storyline is quite refreshing, using chess games to analyse the murder case and to find out the next possible murder victim. Leaving the chess and other irrelevant philosophical content aside, the case itself is very intriguing. And the characters are hilarious or colourful respectively.

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this was a lot of fun to read, the characters were great and I loved the satirical element of the book. I think it really worked as a mystery.

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Three were many things I liked about this book. The writing was excellent. I liked how Jenkins has a very wide-ranging mind and connects many different things together in a way that reminds me of Umberto Eco. Ultimately, even though I liked it I wasn't satisfied with the book's ambiguous ending.

Readers should be very familiar with chess and chess problems because my lack of knowledge in these areas was a hindrance.

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