12 May 2026
Jonny Sweet is a comedian and actor who I knew from Tom Basden's brilliant Radio 4 sitcom 'Party' - about a group of naïve students who have decided to start their own political party. His debut novel 'The Kellerby Code' (which I have just finished reading as an unabridged audio book, narrated by Jack Davenport) is a dark comic thriller which Sweet has described as 'Brideshead Revisited' meets 'The Talented Mr Ripley'. Edward Jevons is a lower-middle-class young man besotted with his upper-class university friends Robert and Stanza. His increasingly desperate attempts to ingratiate himself by being helpful seem to be casting him in the role of a servant rather than a friend. Through a series of small incremental steps Edward's journey becomes more macabre and his predicament more cringeworthy. While it might be unfair to expect a novel by a comedian to have to be funny, a novel by a comedian that specifically references 'The Code of the Woosters' by PG Wodehouse wasn't as funny as I was expecting. It's a thrilling ride but I didn't find Edward a sympathetic enough character. Jonny Sweet said he was aiming for a mixture of Wodehouse and the Coen Brothers. It's an interesting and very readable debut but the grand guignol needed a bit more light relief for me.
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