Having read Trevor's collected short stories plus 'Felicia's Journey' and one other novel of his, the title of which escapes me, I greatly looked forward to tackling this. I wasn't disappointed. The author can boast an impressive trail of frightening characters across his work and the teenager Timothy Gedge is as chilling as any of them. What is so macabre about this story is that Gedge, though a prodigious blackmailer, sets his ransom at nothing more than a few props for an act in a local talent contest he intends to enter. His knowledge has been shamelessly gained by spying on the inhabitants of the small town in which he lives, knowledge which threatens to uproot the lives of everyone whose path he crosses. His cheeky, fruit gum-chewing persistence gives him credibility. Everyone has known someone outwardly resembling him, though his ability to bare the most unthinkable truths doesn't bear thinking about. I don't believe I've read anything better by Trevor.