is in charge. Her latest novel, Tackle!, is published this week. If you are unfamiliar with the series, we are back in Rupert Campbell-Black’s pet-filled Cotswold idyll and he is still the most handsome man in the world .We can learn a lot from Tackle!, as we can from the rest of Cooper’s oeuvre. But to get you up to speed: Rupert still has broken ribs , Taggie has breast cancer, but Safety Car, a mesmerisingly ugly horse, is fine .
In Cooper’s world, everyone is attractive: they are “pale, dark and handsome,” “beautiful and wicked” and even “ravishingly pretty”. Truth be told, he has been having a tantrum since he washed the vaginal deodorant out of Helen’s privates in 1985. He is always sleeping badly, and sustaining injuries, and pretending they don’t hurt, and crusading to victory with a dislocated shoulder, and covering his pain with stoicism and more tantrums. In Cooper’s telling,this is incredibly hot and he is exactly the kind of man you want in your corner .
Really, though? Could one man invent these things, bring them to market and get rich enough to buy a football team? I have always doubted Cooper’s understanding of the business sphere. I had my doubts during Rivals about whether success was as easy as walking into a fundraising bid with three buttons of your shirt undone, rather than two. But, at the end of the day, she is rich and I am not.