I read 3 Patrick Hamilton books last year and reviewed them all on my ‘Echostains’ blog. I could transfer them to ‘Bookstains’, but I believe duplicate posts are missed by Google, I will put the links to my reviews here;-
I had watched ‘Twenty thousand streets under the sun’ when it came on TV, then I had to have the DVD….it was only a short step to reading the book. My first taste of Hamilton was underway, though it was quite a time before I got round to reading these three books. I love the seedy underworld of bygone London. The real life characters like Francis Bacon (my favorite artist of all time which I still haven’t wrote about – yet), Daniel Farson the journalist, my favorite photographer (and not very nice person) John Deakin, the wonderful Jeffrey Bernard (I love his dark deadpan whingeing, self depreciating humour). There are reams of Bohemians I could write about (and I will!) – they all inhabit the seedy side of old London.
HANGOVER SQUARE was the second of my new Hamilton books. Same setting – London. The story is set in a lodging house in the war. A good read but I found it hurtling towards the end and missing a few serious fences. Indeed there seemed to be an actual tying up of loose ends for tying up sake. Some good characters in this book though.
THE GORSE TRINITY This is the book which was televised in 1987 and called ‘The Charmer’ starring Nigel Havers as Gorse. I enjoyed this book more than the other two (but not as much as (”Twenty Thousand Streets under the Sky’). A wonderful page turner – apart from the end which – well baffled me and left me a bit disappointed.
This reminds me that I have yet to do a review of ‘Twenty Thousand Streets under the sky’ and I must remedy this. I have done a review of the DVD though which I have watched many times. This book translated well to screen – well worth watching. The DVD review HERE
Bookstains 