I had no real intention, after finishing Gentlemen and Players, of continuing to read the Malbrey series (or at least not now), but the sequel was available at the library while everything else in which I was interested was wait-listed, and I did kinda want to know what happened next and to whom, so…I checked it out.

I almost quit reading Different Class about 30 percent in because, in the flashback portion of the story, one of the little sociopathic boarding school boys tortures a mouse, and I really don’t need to be reading about that right now.

But…I kept going. And it was for one specific reason, which was that I haven’t recently encountered another author whose use of metaphor and language spoke to me like Joanne Harris’s does.

One example was when a new teacher joins the staff and the protagonist (Classics Master Roy Straitley, still) notes that he’s a “Suit,” and basically falls into line in every respect with Dr. Devine, his mentor on the staff. Straitley remarks that the new teacher is “a bonsai version of himself,” the most vividly literary way ever to say that Dr. Devine has a “mini-me.” I love a literary phrase that also makes me laugh out loud and picture Mike Myers in a bald cap and a white suit.

Another is when Straitley is reflecting about the new school Head, who has turned out to be one of Roy’s troubled students from 20-some years ago, and ruminates, “”He’s the one releasing the ghosts, like a child with a magic lamp that, instead of casting light, releases nothing but darkness…”

Then I hit the 50 percent mark and decided that, after all, literary language could only make up for so much. The animal torturer moved on to multiple and then increasingly more horrifying subjects to satisfy his “condition,” as he calls it, and yeah, it turns out that I’m one of those bleeding hearts who can cheerfully regard the murder of a fellow human being when it furthers the mystery, but draws the line at killing off the dog (or pulling the wings off of flies, for that matter). Basically, the balance shifted and I cared less about literary expression and more about not putting any more nightmarish visions into my long-term memory. So Joanne Harris will have to find another reader, because although this guy will probably get his in the end, I can’t bear to read through all the things he did to deserve it. On to less disturbing material…