The return of Patrick Hamilton
One reason I didn't mind being stuck at the airport was that it gave me the chance to immerse myself in "The Gorse Trilogy". I'm on a Patrick Hamilton binge at the moment, you see. Why on earth isn't he better known? His novels are mesmerizing, like a cross between Dickens and a more lyrical Graham Greene, but without Greene's irritating religious sub-text. As luck would have it, the New York Review of Books has just run an essay on "Twenty Thousand Streets Under The Sky", "Hangover Square" and "The Slaves of Solitude". And there's more about the villainous Ernest Ralph Gorse here.