A Week in December

In London, three weeks before Christmas 2007, the lives of several characters intersect and intercut each other. With savage accuracy, the story skewers (and explains) the banking industry and the subprime mortgage crisis while also touching on the evils of Islamic fundamentalism, the British school system, reality TV, role-playing computer games, and critics who delight in giving bad book reviews (a character perhaps added to ensure good book reviews?). As in real life, a concept most of the characters have abandoned, Faulks’ best plotlines are those that involve relationships between people.