There are lessons to discover in Patrick Hamilton's Hangover Square, and most prominent is that if you're schizophrenic, lay off the sauce. You might also avoid obsessing over amoral, talentless beauties who want your money. And try to remember the bitch you want to kill, or things can get messy.

I have been reading about this 1942 novel for years, but it wasn't reprinted until 2006, so an advance copy ran a whopping five bucks from the good people at Half.com, and expectations played their bitchy hand. Gentle George Bone seeks only love in 1939 England, but he falls into a crowd of selfish petty criminals who let him hang around for the bar tab. When it finally becomes clear that the aforementioned hootch whore, Netta, has only his wallet and not his heart in her sights, his minds clicks and the only crystal moment in his whole life demands he murder her. What follows is the mystery of the timing of his clicks, in which he "blackouts" and awakes anew, without memory and desperately trying to put together the pieces of his past. Will the wrong click match up with four breakfast whiskeys and lead him to her door with a murderous heart?

This reminded me somewhat of Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley- spare prose, leisurely pace, and sudden violence. For some reason I expected more lighthearted frolicking, probably because I've never had a hangover. Isn't that some of kind of aperitif?