Piglet
Chris Rust
Paperback
(Independently published, Aug. 9, 2020)
Simon Peters (whose family pet name is Piglet) is a teenager whose father has just died. At school, in English, they are just starting to study Shakespeare’s play Hamlet and this starts to give Simon the idea that, as in Hamlet, his father’s death was not natural but that he was, in fact, murdered by his uncle, in collusion with his mother. As the story progresses, events strangely and unerringly seem to parallel the plot of the play. Not every connection is explicitly noticed by Simon but sufficiently, to the point that Simon himself realises the eerie similarity, which increasingly causes him to question his sanity. All the connections will, however, be recognised by a reader with a knowledge of Hamlet. And as with all tragedies, despite the readers’ wishes to the contrary, the plot inexorably progresses to the inevitable and unavoidable tragic conclusion.This book is intended to appeal to teenagers as both an easy introduction to the story of Hamlet but also an enjoyable and gripping story in its own right.The author spent eleven years teaching English in two UK secondary schools.