Trustee from the Toolroom ~ Nevil Shute

One thing has become clear these past few days: I should not reread anything Nevil Shute wrote before the 1940s. Those are bound to be boyish books, with uninteresting heroes. And I am not looking for that. I simply want a story, with people I come to care about. A love story preferably, if possible.

Trustee from the Toolroom is the last novel Shute wrote, and for some people his best ever. But I don’t know. I like the central theme alright: an ordinary man overcomes his normal fears and doubts and achieves something extraordinary in order to help someone else. In this case the child of his sister.

And I liked the many technical details given, as the main character makes miniature machinery. What I really didn’t like was the sudden Deus ex machina; when the powerful man with money behind the scenes turned out to be capable of putting everything right in the end. That was too easy, that.