Synopsis
Hailed by The New Yorker as “wickedly enjoyable,” Nicholas Coleridge’s newest novel is a sharp comedy of manners about two powerful men engaged in a bitter rivalry. Their feud rages from the boardroom to the bedroom as old money takes on the new
Gazing from his magnificent Chawbury Manor, Miles Straker has it all. But when noveau riche Ross Clegg buys and builds on the land adjoining his country estate, ruining his perfect view, Miles is irate. Even worse, Ross is quickly taken up by the country gentry, who admire his success and his down-to-earth manners. But Miles is a dangerous enemy and he vows to take the Clegg empire apart piece by piece. A rich read full of wit, Pride and Avarice is sure to be Coleridge’s biggest selling book to date.
Publishers Weekly
Coleridge's latest (after Godchildren) is a lengthy, elaborate skewering of contemporary Britain's wealthy movers and shakers that, while funny and smartly conceived, could stand to lose a good 150 pages. Miles Straker is handsome, wealthy and enormously connected as chairman and CEO of his own public relations firm. When on-the-rise grocery chain owner Ross Clegg secures a plot of land abutting Miles's country seat, Chawbury Manor, and erects a monstrosity of a home, the gauntlet is thrown. While Ross's company grows by leaps and bounds and begins to challenge Miles's top client's market share, the Clegg family worms its way into the Chawbury social scene. Such threats to the upper-crust status quo are not taken lightly, and all-out Straker-Clegg family entanglement ensues. The novel bears all the trappings of a well-crafted social satire—delightfully loathsome characters, romantic intrigue of the most sordid kind, a keen eye for the ever-important details of appearance—but as the narrative progresses, the ever-increasing chains of coincidences and shifts of allegiance begin to feel like a piling-on. Sometimes less is more. (Feb.)