The Little Nugget

Peter Burns, at the insistence of his fiancée Cynthia, sets out to kidnap Ogden Ford, son of an American millionaire, and return the boy to the custody of his doting mother. Knowing Ogden will soon be arriving at Sanstead House, an English preparatory school, Burns secures a teaching post there. However, Burns is not the only one attempting to kidnap Ogden. Rival criminals Buck MacGinnis and Smooth Sam Fisher are both trying to get hold of the boy. To further complicate matters, the school's butler is a Pinkerton's detective in disguise and the woman who jilted Burns five years earlier is also employed at Sanstead House. I quite enjoyed this comical thriller. The story is light-hearted and full of amusing characters and humorous situations. But this is not a typical Wodehouse farce. At times, the book is somber as the protagonist engages in self-examination. There are some beautiful yet poignant reflections on being in love. The story climaxes with a rather suspenseful chase sequence complete with gunplay. As a long-time Wodehouse reader, I found these differences in both style and content refreshing. Although the book may lack the polished wit and sparkling prose of Wodehouse's later works, "The Little Nugget" is still a gem.

The Little Nugget was my first experience with PGW, and I've since gone on to read several more. More serious in its nature than any of the other Wodehouse's I've ever read, Nugget is still a hillarious story--if not more wistful in the romance section. Smooth Sam Fisher is possibly the most likable villain I have ever read--every section with him had me rolling. While this might not be the best place to start, this is still an excellent novel and a humorous, easy read.

However happy your mood, reading a Wodehouse book will turn it up a notch. The early Wodehouse novels are no exception. "The Little Nugget" is funny, exciting, and romantic. It doesn't have as many memorable lines as a Jeeves and Wooster story, but it's definitely worth reading and is very interesting to those of us who have already read and re-read "The Inimitable Jeeves."

The Little Nugget was Agatha Christie's favourite Wodehouse - a choice Wodehouse himself was offended by (as he felt she was not keeping up to date with his latest works). The book contains traces of the "school" genre of writing (e.g "The Pothunters") with its school and setting and gangster involvement. There is also a romantic storyline - unlike the humorous romances of the Wodehouse's later works (the various struggles of the later Blandings books, or the Wooster romances) this has a slightly more serious tone to it - a reminder that Wodehouse wrote for Mills and Boon in his time. The humour, though undoubtedly something different from the polished Jeeves and Wooster dialogue is still very good, and the character of the "little Nugget" is well captured in all his repulsiveness. Indeed his reappearance in "Picadilly Jim" builds on this story - and shows Wodehouses recognition that this was a good comic character that could be developed further. Overall, those whose previous experience of Wodehouse has been Wooster or Lord Emsworth may find themselves a little shocked by the different tone here, but it is a good story with occasional flashes of inspiration in the dialogue. I would not agree with Agatha

This book, from early in Wodehouse's career, is wonderful. It starts a bit slow with some necessary setup info, but once it switches to first person about thirty pages in, it crackles right along to the end in P.G.'s funhouse style. Four separate kidnappers, a lost love, and a wealthy young man getting his first taste work all swirled together the Wodehouse way equals a sure cure for what ails ya.