If We Were Villains is a fine festive read with shades of Shakespeare

WHEN the first snows of the year happen in Scotland, it signals something exciting, and ironically warm. The season of holidays from school, college and university means for many young people, the opportunity to read as many novels as possible before real life and work return.

The kind of books I want to recommend for this season are the kind that feel as indulgent as sleeping in and sitting by a fire.

This is exactly what ML Rio provides so masterfully, with even more than a wintry atmosphere, a plot of drama and death and a youthful fascination with all the most intense emotions this world can offer.

Many have likened If We Were Villains to Donna Tartt’s modern classic The Secret History, and while the secrets and consuming relationships do strike a similar note, what cannot be overemphasised is that this book calls in every word to Shakespeare fans.

Someone the reader does not yet know sparks the first light of a mystery on the novel’s first page, by telling us – and an older, weary detective – that he’s ready to tell the story of how he ended up in prison.

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Flashback to 10 years ago where the story begins. Our narrator Oliver was one of the few students to make it through the rigorous testing of performers at Dellecher Classical Conservatory, a four-year course which eliminates those actors who have not performed to the highest level each year.

His six closest friends are the group with whom he performs, and like every actor, they have a typecast. Oliver is always the sidekick to the hero and the best friend he can never stop being terrified he’ll lose somehow, James.

Filippa, a boyish and versatile girl, finds herself playing those roles of shifting gender so common in Shakespeare.

Wren, meanwhile, plays the traditional, ingenue feminine while Meredith for the most part plays dominating female leads.

Finally, while they often found a villain in Alexander’s sharpness, it would be Richard – the firm yet jealous boyfriend of Meredith and a contrasting cousin to the soft and innocent Wren – who plays the characters people could be truly afraid of.

As an almost obsessive friend group, the seven of them seem to always line up perfectly with these character types.

However, as the messy emotions of youth, competition, talent and the possibility of failure or success come into play, will these perfect roles fall away?

With a kind of murder foreshadowed in almost every perfectly placed Shakespeare quote, hidden attractions and love and hatred in equal measure, the group’s practised lines and stereotypes fall apart.

It is often said that the immortality of Shakespeare lies in the universality of the emotions he expresses. It is this that the book achieves by being far more about the blurring lines between romantic and platonic adoration than time at an acting school, or even murder.