Patrick Hamilton, Hangover Square

Random House, New York 1942.
First American edition.

Hangover Square is a pitch black comedy set in a rather sinister corner of pre-war London. George Harvey Bone, one of the main characters, is the victim of a strange dual personality and is hopelessly adrift in his own drunken hell. His helpless infatuation with a dreadful girl named Netta ends abruptly when something clicks in his head – and he realizes that he must kill her. It is a tense, exiting and frightening thriller.