Ned Maddstone has the world at his feet. He is handsome, talented and about to go to Cambridge, after which he is expected to follow his father into politics. But an unfortunate confrontation with a boy in his school results in a prank that goes badly wrong and suddenly he's incarcerated - without chance of release. So begins a year long process of torment and hopelessness, which will destroy his very identity, until almost nothing remains of him but this unquenchable desire for revenge.

Inspired by the Count of Monte Cristo, Fry's psychological thriller is written with the pace, wit and shrewd insight that we have come to expect from one of our finest novelists.

The Stars' Tennis Balls is a psychological thriller novel by Stephen Fry, first published in 2000. In the United States, the title was changed to Revenge. The story is a modern adaptation of Alexandre Dumas's 1844 novel The Count of Monte Cristo, which was in turn based on a contemporary legend.

The original title comes from a quotation taken from John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi, which reads: "We are merely the stars' tennis balls, struck and bandied which way please them." The novel is dedicated "To M'Colleague" (meaning Hugh Laurie, "M'Colleague" being the name by which Fry and Laurie referred to each other in their TV show A Bit of Fry and Laurie).