The Man Who Was Thursday by GK Chesterton

Some time in the early years of the 20th century an anarchist and an undercover policeman discuss poetry at a party in a bohemian suburban enclave of London. The policeman inveigles his way into a branch meeting of the anarchist group and, after speaking out, is elected to the central council of seven men known only as their code names of days of the week. Syme, the policeman, is now known as Thursday and must find a way of thwarting the diabolical schemes of the anarchists who seem to be hiding in plain sight preparing to overthrow orderly society with their bombs and knives.

This is a rather odd and unexpectedly funny story, that takes some unusual turns as the policeman Syme tries to work out who he can trust on the council in order to fathom out the true identity of the leader Sunday. Chesterton deals with ideas of rationality, art, identity and of course the conflict between the social order and the chaos of anarchism. The anarchists argues that social change can only come about through throwing a bomb at the king and as this was written just 6 years before Gavrilo Princip did exactly that in Sarajevo, Chesterton seems remarkably prescient.

The final section of the book starts with a wild cross country chase and ends with a slightly ambiguous denouement that reminded me of the finale of the tv series The Prisoner crossed with Philip K Dick’s classic tale of drug fuelled paranoia A Scanner Darkly. The setup would also make for a great one shot player vs player RPG scenario in something like Paranoia with multiple secret identities and conflicting agendas.