It’s always interesting when writers write about writers, and that memory of Misery you just had isn’t out of place here. We’re not talking Sarah-Jessica adverts for laptops, or Bukowski’s bourbon product-placement. No, Lee’s author protagonist is not an advert for the literary profession. A few chapters into Roy’s life, and the formulaic thriller hack is not an advert for anything at all.

Middle-aged, alone and repressed, Roy’s small-minded life is continuing to be as dull and unpleasant as normal, until a chance encounter with Sej. Sej appears to be a doppelganger of a character in one of Roy’s novels, the secret side-project that no one else has ever read.

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