THE BLACK PRINCE

<p>Former tax inspector Bradley Pearson is a writer who has published nothing - his precept is perfect; his maxim is to wait - unlike his best friend Arnold Baffin who is a prolific highly-successful writer of second-rate novels. Now Bradley is to retire to his seaside cottage to write his masterpiece. In a series of smartly comic scenes his departure is thwarted by a succesision of unwelcome visitors and crises: a wheedling ex-brother-in-law a detested ex-wife a suicidal sister a distraught phone call from Arthur who has battered his wife Rachel. But when the Baffin's teenage daughter Julia asks Bradley to give her a tutorial on Hamlet "the god of love and art the Black Eros the Black Prince" is unleashed with dire and terrifying results.</p>