One of the first great thrillers, and still one of the best.

Like Sir Pelham's first book, The Pothunters, A Prefect's Uncle is largely devoid of the plot, effort, and genius of his later works. There is a rather weak and uninteresting main plot, and a minor subplot that depends on a preposterous and unnecessary coincidence, and there are some slightly memorable characters, so Sir Pelham has made some progress since his first novel.

For Wodehouse completists only. While pleasant enough, this book lacks the careful plotting and pointed characterization on which Sir Pelham worked so hard in his later books.

The coincidences are there, not because they're funny, but to save the author a small amount of work. I confess that I had to keep jumping back in the book to keep the various characters straight, and I never did discern much, if any, plot. Wodehouse poked fun at plotless, coincidence-driven novels in his later books; perhaps he was trying to atone for his first one.