Fiction
Reviews
Darkly funny as Saltburn, but with kilts
Val McDermid
Sometimes sad, often funny coming-of-age story... a fine novel. It is moving, as novels of time lost and time recovered always are
The Scotsman
There is a lovely turn of phrase on every page...Combining Adrian Mole, Withnail and Iain Banks by way of Kingsley Amis, engaging, buffered by a nice line in self-deprecation
The Arts Desk
a coming-of-age story with a mind-blowing opening paragraph, the novel explores middle-class teenager Tommo's moves among the fading elite of society and the sinister undertow of their world, holding the reader in a vice-like grip all the way to the final page
Sunday Post
Hot on the heels of Saltburn and Jonny Sweet’s The Kellerby Code, Hugo Rifkind’s entertaining new novel offers another jaded look at the antics of the posh . . . keeps the outrageous laughs and twists coming in equal measure
Observer
It is terrific... really captures the anxiety of youth
Times Radio
Rabbits is an instantly compelling novel; it is simultaneously poignant, peculiar, tragic, and very, very funny. Highly recommended
Sathnam Sanghera
A remarkable achievement, a novel that so well encapsulates the slightly feral condition of teenage boys tasting independence for the first time ... recreates a world unknown to most readers, like Saltburn, rather creepily repellent, but with all its fascination to the outsider
Linda Grant, Booker Shortlisted author of The Clothes on Their Backs
The best 2 a.m.-whisky story of madly evocative nineties' youth: parties in crumbling houses, and a sense of time running out. This book is fabulous company – you’ll cancel your own parties to get to the end. A queasy, hilarious joy
Caitlin Moran
The leap from journalism to fiction is not always an easy one, but in Rifkind's case, my only frustration is that he took so long to take the leap. A darkly funny, often disturbing, hugely entertaining story that sneaks around behind the crumbling facades of wealth and masculinity to smoke a joint and shoot some shit
Tim Minchin
Rabbits pulls you in and doesn't let go. A dazzling, compelling novel
John Niven, author of Kill Your Friends
A menacingly funny story of dark secrets, coming-of-age faltering, and the dirty seduction of being sucked into elite circles... Rabbits is a droll, bold, disturbing dynamo of a book
LoveReading
The novel captures the awkwardness of boyhood, of fierce friendship, the danger of neglect...Shotguns, drugs, kilts, testosterone and a lonely-boy hero caught up in a murder mystery is a dangerous combination. Rifkind nails the blood-chilling brutality of the upper classes
The Spectator
A poignant story of doomed love... a "proper debut", a coming of age story drawing heavily on his own background and experience
Herald
A dark and deeply unsettling tale of aristocratic excess, fatalism, snobbery and unfeasibly large, crumbling mansions set in remote Scottish glens. Rifkind is a famously entertaining writer and in Rabbits he takes the handbrake off
Scottish Field
Told in a breezy, irreverent style that plumbs black comedy to reveal its tragedy, Rabbits feels like a blend of Brideshead Revisited and Less Than Zero reworked by Chris Brookmyre
Irish Times
Rifkind shows us that he is a natural born storyteller with this dark hearted and richly imagined tale. The novelists vivid descriptions and addictive writing style make for a fast paced and compelling read
Scots Magazine
PHENOMENAL new book from the always reliably excellent Hugo Rifkind. Read this in a single day by the pool, skipping lunch to finish it
Mark Miller, Comic Book Writer
Rifkind's gripping thriller, a coming-of-age story that reads like a less graphic Saltburn, with kilts and ceilidhs instead of Sophie Ellis-Bextor
The Jewish Chronicle
Darkly funny, tragic and instantly compelling, Rabbits is a coming-of-age story that encapsulates the slightly feral condition of teenage boys in rural Scotland tasting independence for the first time
NB Magazine
About the Book
Tommo has just moved to a prestigious boarding school. A product of the middle class, and with new-found independence thrust upon him, he finds himself invited into fading crumbling country houses.
It’s the early nineties and the elite he is now surrounded by is struggling for relevance. Alienated from the mainstream, and running low on inherited wealth, his peers have retreated into snobbery and fatalism. Initially awed by their poise and seduced by their hedonism, Tommo gradually becomes aware of sinister undercurrents and a suppressed rage that threatens to explode into violence.
In this world, half-remembered traditions mix with decadence and an awful lot of small dead animals. And sometimes, not just animals. When Tommo’s friend Johnnie’s brother is found dead, a shotgun at his feet, he realises there are secrets that everyone knows, but no one speaks about, or even acknowledges. And those secrets can no longer be hidden.
'Keeps the outrageous laughs and twists coming in equal measure' – Alexander Larman, The Observer
The Author
Hugo Rifkind
Hugo Rifkind is a columnist, critic and leader writer for The Times and a presenter on Times Radio, having formerly been a columnist for the Spectator, GQ and the Herald. He is a regular panellist on BBC Radio 4’s comedy show The News Quiz, and an occasional guest on television shows that aren’t supposed to be funny at all. He was born and raised in Edinburgh, studied in Cambridge, and now lives in North London in a house where everybody else speaks German, including the dog.
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