The Long Snake Tattoo

By ELIZABETH GLEICK

Ted Hamilton is night manager at the Eagle, a seedy Liverpool hotel whose habitues "wander in from twelve o'clock onwards...clutching at their down-below parts, ready for their lonely bit of action." The narrator of this slangy, tangy first novel from Britain has seen it all. Or so he thinks, until the Eagle falls into the hands of managers from the head office, who express concern for their "customer-stroke-guests" while remaining oblivious to the shenanigans under their noses. Throw in a racist thug, some lovable Cockneys and Rastafarians, and a whiff of violence, and you've got a small bomb just waiting to explode. The plot here is incidental; what takes center stage is the driving, driven narrative voice.

--By Elizabeth Gleick