These novels follow the fortunes of a petty swindler (based on a real Neville HEath) as he preys on a succession of women, flattering his way into their affections and parting them from their money. The plots are skilfully constructed and developed, characters' psychologies are deftly exposed and these novels are shot through with a sense of brooding menace and terrible inevitability that are entirely the author's own. Keith Waterhouse has called Hamilton a riveting dissector of English life', and Doris Lessing 'a marvellous novelist'.'