Putting the Boot In

by Julian Barnes

Duffy mystery series (book 3)

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"There are too many ways of breaking a footballer's leg. Too many, that is, from the footballer's point of view. Others may find the freedom of choice encouraging." Third Division Athletic has been an unlucky club for ages, but things are about to get much worse. Danny Matson, Athletic's top scorer, is out for the season after a scuffle inexplicably leaves him with a ruptured Achilles tendon. The team's manager, Jimmy Lister, is convinced that someone is intentionally kicking the team while show more it's down, and he hires Nick Duffy to get to the bottom of it. Duffy has always been a worrier. He frets about his weight, about his burgeoning relationship with constable Carol Lucas, about his promiscuity with both men and women, and about the AIDS epidemic sweeping through London. This latest case gives him an opportunity to focus his attention elsewhere, on a list of suspects ranging from trophy-hungry supporters to hardcore skinheads bent on whitewashing England. show less

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Member Reviews

6 reviews
Refreshingly inconclusive. Duffy is lightweight fun. There is an attempt at contemporary seriousness regarding his bisexuality and the specter of AIDS but I never felt that Barnes's heart was really in it. Only one more to go unless he decides to write another.
Disappointed to learn Julian Barnes wrote this as I don't like Julian Barnes's work and this is a good book
Duffy se mete en e mundo del soccer y de los millonarios que compran clubes de tercera, no se sabe bien porque. Es un divertimento de Barnes, y cumple en parte su objetivo.

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Author Information

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89+ Works 43,101 Members
Julian Barnes was born in Leicester, England, on January 19, 1946. He received a degree in modern languages from Magdalen College, Oxford University in 1968. He has held jobs as a lexicographer for the Oxford English Dictionary, a reviewer and literary editor for the New Statesmen and the New Review, and a television critic. He has written show more numerous works of fiction including Arthur and George, Pulse: Stories, The Noise of Time, and England, England. He received the Somerset Maugham Award in 1980 for Metroland, the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize in 1985 and a Prix Medicis in 1986 for Flaubert's Parrot, and the Man Booker Prize in 2011 for The Sense of an Ending. He also writes non-fiction works including Letters from London, The Pedant in the Kitchen, and Nothing to Be Frightened Of. He received the Shakespeare Prize by the FVS Foundation in 1993, the Austrian State Prize for European Literature in 2004, and the David Cohen Prize for Literature in 2011. He writes detective novels under the pseudonym Dan Kavanaugh. His works under this name include Duffy, Fiddle City, Putting the Boot In, and Going to the Dogs. (Bowker Author Biography) show less

Series

Common Knowledge

Canonical title*
Arrêt de jeu
Original title
Putting the Boot In
Original publication date
1985
People/Characters
Nick Duffy
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.

Classifications

Genres
Fiction and Literature, Mystery, LGBTQ+
DDC/MDS
823.914Literature & rhetoricEnglish & Old English literaturesEnglish fiction1900-1901-19991945-1999
LCC
PR6061 .A895Language and LiteratureEnglishEnglish Literature1961-2000
BISAC

Statistics

Members
82
Popularity
388,937
Reviews
5
Rating
½ (3.38)
Languages
5 — Dutch, English, French, German, Spanish
Media
Paper, Ebook
ISBNs
15
ASINs
4