MASTER OF THE GAME. By Sidney Sheldon

Well - a confession must be made, I find it embarrassing when some people frequently tell me nowadays that I have done well to review "many African books and writers...you are one of the few readers who obviously read virtually only African books". Alas, this is patently untrue! It would shock such people to learn that over the years, most - actually like over 80 percent! - of my reading, has involved Eurocentric writers and their work. Why I might focus on reviewing African works is simple: I reckon that the western world already has a throbbing surfeit of readers, critics, studies on their literary protagonists, which is not the case for most African works! So why should I review eurocentric works? Also, why this preamble? After just re-reading this book, Master of the Game, I realised how much I love(d) the Sidney Sheldon novels, and how I read the whole series again and again in the recent past. If only I could do the same with African works! Anyway, Master of the Game is Sidney Sheldon at his best, featuring what he does best - a very powerful, alluring, larger-than-life woman (Kate Blackwell) who on the surface has it all. Except that she doesn't. What she is obsessed with, especially as she gets older, is to have someone in the family to take charge of the mammoth monolithic Kruger-Brent company that she has sacrificed all her long life for. Her own child, and grandchildren have disappointed her greatly in this wise, despite all her schemes and manipulations. And despite the fact that she is one of the richest and most powerful women in the world. This superb story spans a hundred years or so, starting with Jamie who initially suffers incredibly before building a dynasty of diamond fortune; then his remarkable daughter, Kate, takes over turning the company into a global conglomerate; Tony, her son is only really interested in being a painter, and his mother's manipulations to try to prod him into what he is not ends in disaster; Tony's own lovely daughters (twins) also disappoint Kate, with one of them (Eve) who seems best qualified to run the company apparently possessed with evil...will young Robert (Kate's great grand-son) turn out to fulfill the desires of Kate? By the end of the novel Kate is 90, and Robert is only 8, and interested only in music. But it is clear that even at her age Kate would still do all she can to ensure the boy takes over Kruger-Brent one day...what a story!!!
- Eric