Pre-numbered label used for registration.

“High Society” tells of three individuals – MP Peter Paget, pop star Tommy Hanson, and teenage runaway Jessie. Interweaving their stories, Elton highlights the fickleness of politics, the cult of personality and the desperate plight of the excluded.



Paget is on a crusade to legalise all drugs. His campaign and the experiences of Tommy with his rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle, and Jessie forced into prostitution funded heroin addiction make a very powerful argument for taking control of the drug trade out of the hands of the criminal world and putting it under regulation and state control. Elton suggests that legislation will take away many of the dangers currently inherent in recreational drug use by ensuring a supply of unadulterated drugs supported by education and health care. Addiction wouldn’t go away, but the black market would. Girls like Jessie would no longer exist in a twilight world outside of the law at the mercy of drug dealers. While there are doubtless flaws in the argument, and drug use would never be a risk free activity – look at alcohol and tobacco – there are far more pros than cons in such an idea.



“High Society” is a well constructed, very readable novel. Elton alternates sections of narrative on each character, always leaving the reader keen to know what will happen next. Each section is well enough written to draw you away from the character you have just left and wrap you up in the story of the next. The reader is carried along – very willingly in my case – as the paths of the three cross and re-cross, to a conclusion that satisfies both fantasy and ‘reality’.



I would quite happily have read this from cover to cover in one sitting given the chance. Recommended reading. 9 out of 10.

RELEASE NOTES:

Picked up at Leeds Meet.

(Have double-checked that I haven't already got this one on the shelf!)

RELEASE NOTES:

Not read yet but been given another copy so will release this one.