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Новое слово в системе перевоспитания малолетних преступников наконец сказано!
Добро пожаловать в школу Гафин, где из трудных подростков по всем правилам педагогики готовят... высокопрофессиональных бандитов!
Здесь каждое задание для контрольной надлежит похитить из тщательно охраняемого сейфа.
Здесь на уроках подробно, на реальных примерах из видеохроники, объясняют, на каких ошибках попадаются воры и налетчики.
Здесь учеников, не обладающих подлинным криминальным талантом, изгоняют с позором - в уличных бандах им место, а не в элите преступного мира!
Близится время выпускных экзаменов.
И сам дьявол не скажет заранее, что готовят преподаватели своим питомцам на сей раз!
Добро пожаловать в школу Гафин, где из трудных подростков по всем правилам педагогики готовят... высокопрофессиональных бандитов!
Здесь каждое задание для контрольной надлежит похитить из тщательно охраняемого сейфа.
Здесь на уроках подробно, на реальных примерах из видеохроники, объясняют, на каких ошибках попадаются воры и налетчики.
Здесь учеников, не обладающих подлинным криминальным талантом, изгоняют с позором - в уличных бандах им место, а не в элите преступного мира!
Близится время выпускных экзаменов.
И сам дьявол не скажет заранее, что готовят преподаватели своим питомцам на сей раз!
288 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 2008
17 people are currently reading
144 people want to read
About the author
Danny King
39 books49 followersDanny King was born in Slough, Berkshire, the second son of Michael and Dorothy King. He and his two brothers, Ralph and Robin, lived on the Britwell Estate until 1979, when they moved to Yateley, Hampshire. He attended Yateley School but failed to gain any qualifications before leaving at the age of 16. He stacked shelves for a short stint in the Yateley branch of Somerfield (then Gateway), before working on various building sites as a hod carrier.
In 1991 he took an Access course at Farnborough College of Technology, which helped him land a place at The London College of Printing studying journalism. Between 1993 and 2002 he worked on various magazine titles, eventually becoming Editor of the Paul Raymond Publications title Mayfair (magazine). He now writes full-time.
In the late 1980s, he was arrested several times and convicted of burglary at Winchester Crown Court and car theft at Camberley Magistrates Court. It is largely due to receiving these convictions that he cites as his reasons for giving education a second go.
In 1991 he took an Access course at Farnborough College of Technology, which helped him land a place at The London College of Printing studying journalism. Between 1993 and 2002 he worked on various magazine titles, eventually becoming Editor of the Paul Raymond Publications title Mayfair (magazine). He now writes full-time.
In the late 1980s, he was arrested several times and convicted of burglary at Winchester Crown Court and car theft at Camberley Magistrates Court. It is largely due to receiving these convictions that he cites as his reasons for giving education a second go.
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
April 27, 2015
'Here at Gafin we take a different approach. We educate young men about crime, show them the effects of their actions, the consequences and pointlessness of indiscriminate robbing. Much of the young criminal's drive is about curiosity. "Can I get away with it?" "Have I got the bottle?" "Have I got the skill?" The teachers at Gafin will show you what you can get away with, test you to the very limit of your bottle, and even teach you the skills to steal...'
That was all 15-year-old, "born thief" Wayne "Banners" Banstead needed to hear. He's been kicked out of too many schools to mention. Plus, this one sounds like it might be kind of fun...
And it is! In math class, the boys learn to calculate if doing the crime is actually worth the time. Even running laps in gym class becomes an exercise in bribery and corruption.
We learned about crime, we drank, we smoked, we swore and we connived like crazy with peers the likes of which none of us had ever known. It was fantastic.
They were my kind of scum.
But something strange is going on here. The headmaster has begun winnowing down the boys, choosing only the most trustworthy (or untrustworthy, as the case may be), and expelling the rest.
What's he got up his sleeve?
Banners and his fellow scumbags will soon find out in an escapade that proves to be hilarious, though tinged with just the right amount of danger and intrigue. And if the boys survive, they'll have received the education of a lifetime.
This was an immensely enjoyable read. There is more King looming on my horizon.
August 28, 2015
This review also appears on my blog at www.silashruparell.com.
My one liner: Criminal capers from a fun easy to read author imparting a few insights into the do’s and don’ts of how to be a master criminal
The Gafin principle: Every criminal gets caught. Every criminal gets caught. The Gafin principle measures whether or not it was worth it. As an example, a Mr Matthews is convicted for 5 crimes, for which he made £500 each. And he serves five years in prison, or approximately 250 weeks. So his weekly earnings from the jobs turn out to be £10 per week. Which he could have earned in any risk-free non-criminal job. So, under the Gafin principle: the crime isn’t worth it.
So what if he had stolen £5 million pounds, would that have been worth it ? Under the Gafin principle you may conclude yes, but in fact no. Because cash is easily traceable, because the Bank of England changes notes and denomination on a regular basis, and because to all intents and purposes you wouldn’t be able to spend it when you got out. £5 million worth diamonds on the other hand, that’s £20,000 per week for each week of prison time. Definitely worth it, and our young students are starting to grasp the principle…
I like Danny King.
His Kindle books are riddled with errors, grammar, syntax, spelling, the lot. I have no idea whether the print books are the same, but I assume there is some publisher quirk around this.
But it really doesn’t manner. Mr King is an honest author, whose books do what they say on the tin. Most relate to the English criminal underworld, ranging from petty to master criminals. Tales hilariously told, and formulaically set up to put the reader firmly on the side of the burglar, thief, pickpocket, schemer – we are naturally emphatic with characters who are laughably pathetic. Great reading when you have a couple of hours to kill and really don’t want to engage the brain.
I have chosen to review School for Scumbags.
You know you are on to a winner with the opening quote of book, from the 17th century by Jean de la Bruyère:
“If poverty is the mother of all crime, lack of intelligence is its father”
And the teenagers at school for scumbags need a lesson in probability and expectation so that they can understand which crimes are worth committing. “Here at Gafin we take a different approach. We educate young men about crime, show them the effects of their actions, the consequences of indiscriminate robbing.” Gafin, run by Mr Gregson, Mr Fotheringay, Mr Sharp, and lovely and flirtaciously delicious Miss Howard, being the outer-London boarding school where a bunch of teenage delinquents have pitched up (or rather have been sent to by divers despairing parents).
Put these 20 or so young layabouts in closed environment together and they will sound find ways to steal of each other, steal off the school, engineer perfect crimes, protect each other, grass on each other, physically assault each other. Each lad with his own distinctive personality, the schemer, the fat kid, the arsonist, the neanderthal.
The protagonist is a young lad called Wayne Banstead (“Banners”), who being of above average intelligence, ends up being the ring leader in most of the capers. Including a hilariously rigged football tournament where parents are invited to witness the progress of their young angels and also to place “bets” on the likely winners.
But it turns out that the Gregson, Sharp, Fotheringay and Miss Howard have a dastardly plan. They have devised the ultimate heist, and one that most definitely does pass the Gafin principle.
The preparation. The boys have not yet been told about the heist.
“Gregson told me to go and nick something in the gift shop…Anything, it didn’t matter. ‘Just nick something,’ he said, ‘and make sure they see you do it.’”
And then a period of intensive training for the big day. No detail left to chance, intensive training, team spirit and camaraderie, removal of a couple of bad apples from the team, and hence from the school.
Each boy clear what his role would be. And who would suspect a bunch of teenage schoolchildren of actually walking out with the stash ?...
So, in keeping with the standard formula of the heist story e.g. [insert your favourite heist movie here], the reader finds himself egging on this disparate bunch of young budding criminals to successfully complete the job.
Naturally there are twists and turns along the way, some people do get hurt, and I won’t say what happens to the treasure, but it’s a fun yarn full of chuckles and giggles.
My one liner: Criminal capers from a fun easy to read author imparting a few insights into the do’s and don’ts of how to be a master criminal
The Gafin principle: Every criminal gets caught. Every criminal gets caught. The Gafin principle measures whether or not it was worth it. As an example, a Mr Matthews is convicted for 5 crimes, for which he made £500 each. And he serves five years in prison, or approximately 250 weeks. So his weekly earnings from the jobs turn out to be £10 per week. Which he could have earned in any risk-free non-criminal job. So, under the Gafin principle: the crime isn’t worth it.
So what if he had stolen £5 million pounds, would that have been worth it ? Under the Gafin principle you may conclude yes, but in fact no. Because cash is easily traceable, because the Bank of England changes notes and denomination on a regular basis, and because to all intents and purposes you wouldn’t be able to spend it when you got out. £5 million worth diamonds on the other hand, that’s £20,000 per week for each week of prison time. Definitely worth it, and our young students are starting to grasp the principle…
I like Danny King.
His Kindle books are riddled with errors, grammar, syntax, spelling, the lot. I have no idea whether the print books are the same, but I assume there is some publisher quirk around this.
But it really doesn’t manner. Mr King is an honest author, whose books do what they say on the tin. Most relate to the English criminal underworld, ranging from petty to master criminals. Tales hilariously told, and formulaically set up to put the reader firmly on the side of the burglar, thief, pickpocket, schemer – we are naturally emphatic with characters who are laughably pathetic. Great reading when you have a couple of hours to kill and really don’t want to engage the brain.
I have chosen to review School for Scumbags.
You know you are on to a winner with the opening quote of book, from the 17th century by Jean de la Bruyère:
“If poverty is the mother of all crime, lack of intelligence is its father”
And the teenagers at school for scumbags need a lesson in probability and expectation so that they can understand which crimes are worth committing. “Here at Gafin we take a different approach. We educate young men about crime, show them the effects of their actions, the consequences of indiscriminate robbing.” Gafin, run by Mr Gregson, Mr Fotheringay, Mr Sharp, and lovely and flirtaciously delicious Miss Howard, being the outer-London boarding school where a bunch of teenage delinquents have pitched up (or rather have been sent to by divers despairing parents).
Put these 20 or so young layabouts in closed environment together and they will sound find ways to steal of each other, steal off the school, engineer perfect crimes, protect each other, grass on each other, physically assault each other. Each lad with his own distinctive personality, the schemer, the fat kid, the arsonist, the neanderthal.
The protagonist is a young lad called Wayne Banstead (“Banners”), who being of above average intelligence, ends up being the ring leader in most of the capers. Including a hilariously rigged football tournament where parents are invited to witness the progress of their young angels and also to place “bets” on the likely winners.
But it turns out that the Gregson, Sharp, Fotheringay and Miss Howard have a dastardly plan. They have devised the ultimate heist, and one that most definitely does pass the Gafin principle.
The preparation. The boys have not yet been told about the heist.
“Gregson told me to go and nick something in the gift shop…Anything, it didn’t matter. ‘Just nick something,’ he said, ‘and make sure they see you do it.’”
And then a period of intensive training for the big day. No detail left to chance, intensive training, team spirit and camaraderie, removal of a couple of bad apples from the team, and hence from the school.
Each boy clear what his role would be. And who would suspect a bunch of teenage schoolchildren of actually walking out with the stash ?...
So, in keeping with the standard formula of the heist story e.g. [insert your favourite heist movie here], the reader finds himself egging on this disparate bunch of young budding criminals to successfully complete the job.
Naturally there are twists and turns along the way, some people do get hurt, and I won’t say what happens to the treasure, but it’s a fun yarn full of chuckles and giggles.
Read
August 11, 2011If PG Wodehouse and Tom Sharpe had co written Oceans 11,the end result would be something like this. Very funny.
September 21, 2015
Unpretentious, entertaining, and often hilarious.
August 15, 2017
What do you do when you've run out of schools to be expelled from, but are still too young to be out of school for good?
And What do you do if you are a master criminal and want to pull of one of the biggest heists in London's history?
Well, if you are the master criminal, you start a pseudo-school. You entice all of the little rule breakers that can't seem to manage to stay in school to come to your boarding school - at no cost to them.
Then, you narrow the class down to your finest 16 and boot the rest out. This obviously is no ordinary school. In this school, they learn how to become better criminals - masters in their newfound profession.
That's exactly what happened to Wayne Banstead and his classmates.
But being true criminals, the 'headmaster' and his staff have other plans after this big heist takes place.
The book is pretty entertaining, but it does leave one to wonder about the gullability of the parents. Especially after the heist takes place. It makes one wonder where the parents are and why have they not come to pull their boys out of this 'school'.
A good read, if not for the last part of the book.
And What do you do if you are a master criminal and want to pull of one of the biggest heists in London's history?
Well, if you are the master criminal, you start a pseudo-school. You entice all of the little rule breakers that can't seem to manage to stay in school to come to your boarding school - at no cost to them.
Then, you narrow the class down to your finest 16 and boot the rest out. This obviously is no ordinary school. In this school, they learn how to become better criminals - masters in their newfound profession.
That's exactly what happened to Wayne Banstead and his classmates.
But being true criminals, the 'headmaster' and his staff have other plans after this big heist takes place.
The book is pretty entertaining, but it does leave one to wonder about the gullability of the parents. Especially after the heist takes place. It makes one wonder where the parents are and why have they not come to pull their boys out of this 'school'.
A good read, if not for the last part of the book.
December 21, 2019
Excellent book!
Really enjoyed this caper. The writing is excellent and I loved all the funny metaphors used along the way. The language is pretty tasty but as long as you’re not easily offended then you should have a lot of fun reading this. Hopefully they make a movie of it soon. Looking forward to reading more of Danny’s books now.
Really enjoyed this caper. The writing is excellent and I loved all the funny metaphors used along the way. The language is pretty tasty but as long as you’re not easily offended then you should have a lot of fun reading this. Hopefully they make a movie of it soon. Looking forward to reading more of Danny’s books now.
July 4, 2022
Not quite as laugh-out-loud funny as The hitman diaries school for scumbags is nevertheless a fantastic comedy book that is is at once tremendously funny and also in parts poignantly touching. Danny king is one of my favourite authors and I just wish he would write more.
March 24, 2018
Good
Really liked this book will be checking others out , hope we find out what happened to all the characters at some time .
Really liked this book will be checking others out , hope we find out what happened to all the characters at some time .
December 9, 2021
Simple, predictable, and at times boring. Thankfully a very short book that didn't take long to read.
November 26, 2016
It's pretty simple -- if you like the title and the premise of a comedy set amidst a very special school in London for delinquent teenage boys, then you're probably going to like this book. Wayne is a teen terror who sees little point in following the rules, and after holding up his school's snack shop with a pellet gun, is all set to be shipped off to a awful-sounding boarding school for troublesome boys. However, when a slot at the tuition-free Gafin School is offered, his parents place him there. It quickly becomes apparent to Wayne that the curriculum and rules here are very much not by the book. With twenty students, four teachers, and assorted parents, characterization is not big in the story. Everyone more or less has one defining trait, and that's it, with Wayne as narrator of their comic journey. Nor is suspense a large factor, as it'll be clear very early on to all readers that these boys are being educated toward a nefarious criminal purpose. The only real suspense is in the twists and turns along the way, and just how dark the story will get. It's light fun, good for the poolside or an airplane, as long as your expectations are in check. And if the title is a turnoff, the book's probably not going to be your cup of tea.
November 9, 2014
Like Henchmen's Bookclub, this King book is a 4-star premise that gets bogged down with
1. Bad editing: Characters are tied to chairs one instant and not the next.
2. Confusing typos: More than once the word "not" was left out of a sentence. That can make a fairly large impact on the story line.
3. Uneven pacing: Too much time was spent setting up the story and not enough with the resolution. All in all, the ending felt rushed.
I'm not going to give up on King--not quite yet.
1. Bad editing: Characters are tied to chairs one instant and not the next.
2. Confusing typos: More than once the word "not" was left out of a sentence. That can make a fairly large impact on the story line.
3. Uneven pacing: Too much time was spent setting up the story and not enough with the resolution. All in all, the ending felt rushed.
I'm not going to give up on King--not quite yet.
December 31, 2012
Undoubtedly one of my favourite books.
Sure, it requires a little bit of suspension of disbelief; it's a silly, possible not plausible premise, but it's worth it.
Superbly written, hilarious in places and just cannot be put down.
For me, one of the most readable books of the last 100 years.
Sure, it requires a little bit of suspension of disbelief; it's a silly, possible not plausible premise, but it's worth it.
Superbly written, hilarious in places and just cannot be put down.
For me, one of the most readable books of the last 100 years.
October 13, 2012
This book was awesome. The first few pages were a bit of a drag but stick with it, hilarity ensures. I was in tears laughing so hard at some of the content of this book. This book reminded me of my family and my childhood. I thought very similar to the main character at times.
The end was a bit rushed for me but I liked it, I would definitely check out more from this author.
The end was a bit rushed for me but I liked it, I would definitely check out more from this author.
January 12, 2013
I didn't think I was going to enjoy this one at the start, but the characters become likeable and the story moves at a fast pace which kept me interested. Good source of reference for my criminal future ;-)
April 13, 2016
Brilliant
I really want to attend this school, again like the last book I've read I laughed my way through certain parts and I'm guaranteeing you will too.
Buy it you won't be disappointed
I really want to attend this school, again like the last book I've read I laughed my way through certain parts and I'm guaranteeing you will too.
Buy it you won't be disappointed
January 13, 2013
comical yarn about a group of the most misbehaved scchool kids who get lumped together to get trained to commit the perfect crime
February 21, 2014
Another fun, funny, unpretentious and contemporary read by Danny.
January 12, 2015
Very funny, fast-paced and engaging. Great use of puns. A life-saver while I was stuck on a delayed train and then while waiting in A&E - made both experiences enjoyable.
April 13, 2013
неплохо, но растянуто. конец заставил улыбнуться :)
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews