Other People’s Rules - Softcover

Hamilton, Julia

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0006513646 ISBN 13: 9780006513643

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2001

Synopsis

A magnificent, completely absorbing novel, revolving around a high society court case. A British Dominic Dunne.

A beautiful, tempestuous girl disappears from her family’s Scottish estate after her brilliant birthday ball. Neither she nor her body are discovered.

Her parents – the icon and celebrated pop star, Michael Gresham, and his wife, a stylish American heiress – employ private detectives and offer rewards but find nothing, until a local serial killer confesses to the murder.

In the neighbouring estate lives Ivar Gatehouse, government spokesman in the House of Lords, famous for his wealth, ancient title and social brilliance, with his fragile painter wife and four near adult children.

Both familes live in almost feudal splendour. Celebrated in Hello! and society pages, their worlds are detached, above, different from ours: they live according to other people’s rules.

But twenty years later, Earl Gatehouse is in Dumfries County Court on trial for murder and the witness on whom the Crown’s case will rely is Lucy Diamond, a one-time friend of his youngest daughter, an outsider to their privileged world, who had come to stay on the summer of the birthday ball.

About this title

Review:

Praise for her writing:

‘A writer of the first rank – she is compellingly readable’ Evening Standard

‘A subtle pen and a belief in the affirmation of love’
Elizabeth Buchan, Mail on Sunday

‘A thoughtful, warm, articulate novelist’ Helen Dunmore, The Times

From the Back Cover:

A captivating saga drawing readers into the elite world of glamour and power, a world in which the privileged think they can live above other peoples rules.

World famous pop star Michael Gresham and his American heiress wife Pauline live in almost regal splendour in the Scottish borders. The neighbouring estate is owned by Ivar Gatehouse, the high-profile politician: breathtakingly good-looking and the possessor of both an ancient title and a beautiful wife. Inevitably, the two families are never far from the glossy pages of nearly every high-society magazine. So, the nation is rocked when the tempestuous daughter of the Greshams disappears from the estate after her lavish 16th birthday ball. When the body is found, Earl Gatehouse is put on trial for her murder.

"First class story-telling. Other People's Rules is the best novel I've read since Captain Corelli's Mandolin. You finish it knowing more about life than you did when you started it... A really excellent novel."
ANNE WEALE

"A compelling thriller written about power and the way it can be abused."
CARLA MCKAY, 'Daily Mail'

"A real page turner."
PRIMA

"There's something deliciously Brideshead about this account of a naïve young girl, falling in thrall to the aristocratic family she becomes briefly part of."
DAILY EXPRESS

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0006513646
• ISBN 13: 9780006513643
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 496