The Scarred Wrists

"The novel takes place in Britain well after the First World War. This is not the stereotypical Britain of subtlety and sophisticated restraint, but the Britain of riverside gangs, blackmailers, and detectives (and police) who work very close to the borders of legality. The male protagonist suffers from poor health--from what is now called post-traumatic stress -- not as a result of the War, but as a result of serving hard time in prison, preceded by a difficult childhood. The female protagonist has had a similar experience of familial rejection; for this and other reasons, the two characters are immediately drawn to each other when they meet through a plot device no doubt borrowed from a Sherlock Holmes Story. The story that unfolds is something of a pell-mell combination of madcap comedy and film noir, and comedy it ultimately is. Despite the generally unapologetic violence, the casual cruelty, and neurotic self-destructiveness, there is underneath and within it all a sense of glee, and the coming into its own of a kind of savage innocence that makes a place for its new life in the decaying ruins of the old."--