This relatively slim volume was the first cricket book I read, and I think it was as good a place as any to start, offering as it does a very readable rendering of an important episode in cricket history. It's a fictionalized account of that infamous 1932/3 tour of England to Australia in which Douglas Jardine instructed his fast bowlers to employ a particularly dangerous style of delivery in hopes of intimidating and ultimately neutralizing young Australian superstar batsman Donald Bradman. It worked (as in, England won decisively), but it almost caused an international incident-- indeed, if I'm to believe the novel, Australia threatened a political break from the Mother Country over it!

The book appears to take pains to get the basic facts correct (of course, I'd have to do more research to be able to tell you exactly how well it succeeds); the "fictionalization" comes in offering us these facts from the various points-of-view of the principal characters, supplying them with dialogue and motivation. So early on we meet young amateur Douglas Jardine, proud and aloof, initially unwilling to play in Australia but ultimately agreeing out of a combination of ambition and noblesse oblige; and professional Harold "Loll" Larwood, good-natured fellow off the field and deadly fast bowler on it, kept hungry to play by the fact that the alternative for him is poverty. Then there's selector and tour manager Pelham "Plum" Warner: as "grand old man of cricket" and embodiment of all of the virtues the game has traditionally stood for, he soon begins to doubt his choice of single-minded Jardine as captain. As things unfold, we're also introduced to fun-loving Freddy Brown (whose romance with a local girl gives us a chance to see the Australian reaction to events), gentleman "Gubby" Allen (who won't bowl Bodyline style), professional Hedley Verity (who also takes his wickets without it), and others. With the exception of Jack Fingleton, though, the major Australian players don't emerge nearly as vividly; Bradman, in particular, remains an enigma. It's not an apologia, but Bodyline: the Novel is definitely England's story.

And it's not just a cricket story, so readers who don't care for the whole "sport as metaphor for life" thing should consider themselves fairly warned. By the end of the book, Wheeler lets Bodyline stand for English society as a whole in the period between the world wars. As on the cricket field, so on the world stage: the assumptions and presumptions of the ruling class were being challenged by the changing times, with results that seemed uncertain except in one respect-- that there would be no going back.

Now, I do have one question about Bodyline: the Novel, and maybe someone more familiar with the events can help me out: the book posits, but does not identify by name, a sort of shadowy mastermind figure who first gives Jardine the idea for Bodyline bowling. The man is clearly supposed to be known to Jardine-- is it his father?-- but he's never fully revealed to the reader. Someone else read this book, and put me out of my misery!

[Note: My copy's back cover mentions a film version "currently" in production (that would have been in 1984) under "Chariots of Fire" producer David Puttnam. The Internet Movie Database, however, doesn't list such a film, nor is Wheeler or Puttnam credited as having anything to do with that other "Bodyline," a TV mini-series made around the same time. Wonder what happened to this project...]