Hangover Square
by Patrick Hamilton
Patrick Hamilton goes in and out of fashion – and I’m not sure he’s ever been as popular in the US as he is in the UK – but a lot of crime writers like him because he has this strange claustrophobia. And he can be funny too, about fairly nasty things.
Recommendations from our site
“I chose Patrick Hamilton because he hits, in particular, on the derangement of the city. He was a big drinker. His writing is like the hallucination or the delirium of an alcoholic dream, and sees London as a kind of nightmare.” Read more...
Iain Sinclair, Novelist
“It’s a study of schizophrenia, in a way. The main character, George Harvey Bone, goes into these strange trance states. Like a lot of Patrick Hamilton’s characters, he is devoted to a woman who is not worthy of him, who is one step up from a prostitute. He’s obsessed with her, and eventually ends up murdering her. It’s just an incredibly written, claustrophobic book that would be in my top five almost any day you rang me. Patrick Hamilton goes in and out of fashion – and I’m not sure he’s ever been as popular in the States as he is in the UK – but a lot of crime writers like him because he has this strange claustrophobia. And he can be funny too, about fairly nasty things.” Read more...
Simon Brett, Thriller and Crime Writer
