Anthony Quinn’s fourth novel, set in London’s artistic and theatrical circles in 1936, is not the kind in which an anguished protagonist sits in lonely contemplation for 80 pages at a stretch. It moves along at a clippy pace, introducing us to a succession of appealing characters and throwing in a lurid murder for extra oomph. But despite its wealth of detail — the lino-clad corridors and ‘mournful furniture’ of a Marylebone boarding-house, lamplighters doing their rounds, actresses wearing Guerlain’s Jicky — it is more substantial than a period romp. As the ‘Tiepin Killer’ — so-called because he pierces the tongues of his victims with a tiepin once he’s strangled them — both terrorises and fascinates London, there are other horrors to contemplate. British fascism is on the march (Oswald Mosley hovers offstage and Lord Haw-Haw makes a deeply unpleasant appearance), women are forced into prostitution by unscrupulous pimps and homosexuals live in precarious concealment.
Chief among the latter is Jimmy Erskine, a fat, boozy theatre critic who’s pushing 60, but, as one onlooker points out, immaturing with age.

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