I am not an unbiased man but I feel the time has come for me to heap some grudging praise on an Old Edwardian. For those of you not of the cloistered world of the King Edward VI Foundation, an Old Edwardian is an alumnus of King Edward's School Birmingham, a private school of some standing. I am a lesser type of Edwardian (I say this with tongue firmly in cheek like a proper grammar school boy) that is to say an Aston Old Edwardian - state educated to the hilt!
Enough of such drivel and on with the praise. Gavin Lyall is the Old Edwardian in question and the particular novel in focus today is Shooting Script. I have read a few of Lyall's books and this is the best I have yet encountered. It has no pretensions to high literature but is fast-paced (I would say Chandleresque) and concise. Lyall's work attracted praise from the ultimate professional wordsmith P.G. Wodehouse. Praise does not come any higher. Try this for a slab of colour:
I'd cheerfully said I'd 'see' him up in the 24th floor bar, but I'd forgotten the lighting they went in for there: a small frosted-glass lamp parked in front of each drinker. Just enough light to make every woman look beautiful and every bar bill unreadable. A big hotel thinks of such things.
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