The Gorse Trilogy

Patrick Hamilton

Little, Brown Book Group, Jul 6, 2017 - Fiction - 864 pages

'I recommend Hamilton at every opportunity, because he was such a wonderful writer and yet is rather under-read today. All his novels are terrific' Sarah Waters

'If you were looking to fly from Dickens to Martin Amis with just one overnight stop, then Hamilton is your man' Nick Hornby


Patrick Hamilton's novels were the inspiration for Matthew Bourne's new dance theatre production, The Midnight Bell.

Ernest Ralph Gorse's heartlessness and lack of scruple are matched only by the inventiveness and panache with which he swindles his victims. With great deftness and precision Hamilton exposes how his dupes' own naivete, snobbery or greed make them perfect targets. These three novels are shot through with the brooding menace and sense of bleak inevitability so characteristic of the author. There is also vivid satire and caustic humour.

Gorse is thought to be based on the real-life murderer Neville Heath, hanged in 1946.

About the author

Patrick Hamilton was one of the most gifted and admired writers of his generation. His plays include Rope (1929), on which the Hitchcock thriller was based, and Gas Light (1939). Among his novels are The Midnight Bell, The Siege of Pleasure, The Plains of Cement, Twenty-thousand Streets Under the Sky, Hangover Square, The Slaves of Solitude and The West Pier. He died in 1962.

The Sunday Telegraph said: 'His finest work can easily stand comparison with the best of this more celebrated contempories George Orwell and Graham Greene.'

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Gorse Trilogy
• Author: Patrick Hamilton
• Contributor: Matthew Beaumont
• Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group, 2017
• ISBN: 0349141509, 9780349141503
• Length: 864 pages
• Subjects: Fiction / Classics; Fiction / Crime; Fiction / Humorous / Black Humor; Fiction / Humorous / General; Fiction / Literary