Raffles: Playing On

Name: Raffles: Playing On
Rating: 4.3 (15 reviews)

by Richard Foreman Book 6 in the Raffles series.

First published 2012

Amazon

3.8(15)

Raffles disappears abroad without explanation, leaving Bunny to confront rumours and his own uncertain future. Bunny wishes to marry Lucy Rosebery, but her father Prescott refuses consent because the prospective bridegroom lacks income and status. When Raffles returns, he proposes resolving the problem through a cricket match against a formidable team captained by Prescott.

The wager extends the series’ use of cricket as social currency. Raffles must recruit an exceptional player and manipulate the contest without openly disgracing Bunny or Lucy. Playing On gives friendship and marriage priority over burglary, while retaining the risk that Raffles’s habit of treating life as a game may worsen the very problem he intends to solve.

Cricket becomes a form of negotiation because Prescott values social standing and sporting reputation more readily than Bunny’s personal qualities. Raffles exploits that hierarchy by converting a private marriage dispute into a public contest whose result can alter how Bunny is judged. The story uses sport to expose the unwritten rules through which late Victorian respectability could determine access to money, marriage and status.