Curtain Call

Nina Land, a West End actress, faces a dilemma: she’s not supposed to be at the hotel in the first place, & certainly not with a married man. But once it becomes apparent that she may have seen the face of the man the newspapers have dubbed ‘the Tie-Pin Killer’ she realises that another woman's life could be at stake.

Jimmy Erskine is the raffish doyen of theatre critics who fears that his star is fading: age & drink are catching up with him, & in his late-night escapades with young men he walks a tightrope that may snap at any moment. He has depended for years on his loyal & longsuffering secretary Tom, who has a secret of his own to protect. Tom’s chance encounter with Madeleine Farewell, a lost young woman haunted by premonitions of catastrophe, closes the circle: it was Madeleine who narrowly escaped the killer’s stranglehold that afternoon, & now walks the streets in terror of his finding her again.

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Anthony Quinn was born in Liverpool in 1964. From 1998 to 2013 he was the film critic for the Independent. He is the author of six novels: The Rescue Man, which won the 2009 Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award; Half of the Human Race; The Streets, which was shortlisted for the 2013 Walter Scott Prize; Curtain Call, which was chosen for Waterstones & Mail on Sunday book clubs; Freya, a Radio 2 Book Club choice, & Eureka.