Once again, the hallowed halls of prestigious academia make for the best kind of instant literary ambience – even if the characters and situations are routinely miserable – in the UK college-set THE NIGHT CLIMBERS, a debut novel by Ivo Stourton.
In this latest higher-ed thriller, our narrator James Walker – wealthy, single, frequents high-dollar prostitutes – is forced to look back on his unique university experience, precipitated by the unexpected arrival on his doorstep of Jessica, a beautiful woman from his past.
As a freshman, James was just a lonely student hoping to find a niche into which he could fit when one came tapping on his dorm room window, quite literally, in the middle of the night. That opportunity manifested itself in Michael, a big, boisterous guy who – along with Jessica, a mysterious woman named Lisa and their super-spoiled ringleader Francis – is a member of “the night climbers,” an unofficial secret club of students who dangerous and illegally scale the walls and traverse the roofs of the buildings on campus.
But despite the title and James’ indoctrination into this world and this coked-up clique, it’s really not about such exploration. Instead, it’s about what happens when Francis – who finances all the drug-taking and general carousing of his pals – pisses off his influential politico father to the point where he’s disowned.
Severed from the money train, Francis hatches a plan to make them all rich beyond their wildest dreams – art forgery alert! – and one that will count upon a “conspiracy of ignorance” to work.
If, like me, you live vicariously through better-times-in-college-than-I-had-tales like THE RULE OF FOUR, you’re likely to be seduced by THE NIGHT CLIMBERS. Stourton – a mere 24 years old, if you choose to hate him – gets off some great phrases like “The story recalled the real function of night in the city, to demonize strangers,” but his tale feels a little old and stale, as in BRIGHT LIGHTS, BIG CITY old and stale.
After the buildup, its revelations make for an anticlimactic letdown. It does not help that neither Current James nor Flashback James is really likable, but it certainly does the book no favors that Francis is fiercely unlikable.
I do like the manner in which Stourton jumps continually from the past to the present; if you worry about keeping track, don’t – the chapter headings are designed in such a way that you’re clued in visually as to where the story resides. Some cultural differences aside – i.e. references to fox hunting (and does Tudor College really loan out multimillion-dollar Picassos for adornment on dorm walls?) – THE NIGHT CLIMBERS is easy to scale. It’s the final plunge that may make you question whether the effort was worth it or not. I’ll say just barely. –Rod Lott
Related posts:
- The Meaning of Night
- A Night for Screaming / Any Woman He Wanted
- Jessica Biel named ESQUIRE’s Sexiest Woman Alive
- Dean Koontz’s Frankenstein: Book Two – City of Night
- Thriller: Stories to Keep You Up All Night
