There is a rather grim photograph of David Hart inside the back jacket of his second novel Come To The Edge. His unsmiling hard-line aspect, combined with no-nonsense hairdo and Victorian bobby moustache gives him that man-with-a-mission look – the sort of chap who would sit up late at night furiously typing long letters to the editor of the Times, a publication in which (more back jacket stuff) he is 'a regular contributor on politics'.

But writing for national dailies does not necessarily a good novelist make – as anyone who has ever perused the pulpy racks of journo bestsellers at airport newsagents will know. Come To The Edge is not, however, one of those: it has neither sex nor violence nor rock'n'roll, it is