Number 1- devastating!

1.  Patrick Hamilton Hangover Square.

My first book of the year reflects 3 intentions: 1 to read more classics, to read some different authors and to try and get rid of some books from my heaving bookshelves.  I find it very hard to get rid of anything, let alone books but my house is not big so needs must.   I do love the feel of this book- it's books that have a lovely textured feel and having a lovely ordered bookcase full of lovely looking, that makes me loathe to ever go over to the Kindle(dark)-side. 

This book was so interesting in a way I totally didn't expect.  We meet George, gentle, gullible man, who gets walked all over by people.  He loves the beautiful but cruel Netta Longden, who is the centre of a pack of unemployed scroungers.  She treats him with utter disdain and uses him, but only has to offer him a slightly less-frosty than usual reception and he is putty in her hands.  Except that he has weird sort of dead moods, where his head clicks and he becomes another side of his personality.  In this brainset, he is shut off from his real-self and is full of resentment for Netta and decides she must die.  As we go through the book, we discover just how nasty Netta is- and you long for George to have the strength to break away from his infatuation and get away.  Wondering when he is next going to go into one of his dead-moods keeps the tension up throughout.  He comes into contact with an old school acquaintance, and meets someone who Netta DOES want to win over.  As we near the end, the tension is unbearable- I willed and willed the book to end in the way I wanted. 
I was utterly devastated by the end of this book- it's another Phantom of the opera!

Read it, totally fascinating- it is set against a background of pre-WW2 England- gloomy, depressing, seedy, low-expectations- a brilliant insight into that time.

Anyone else read it?