A Knock at the Door

By Eva Hanagan

When Victor, a solitary Jewish bachelor, moves next door to busybody Nora, she’s determined to welcome him to the area – whether he likes it or not.

Unfortunately for her, Victor is too haunted by the Nazi atrocities he experienced in wartime Vienna to appreciate her constant peering through his letterbox, homemade gifts or blundering attempts to chat over the gooseberry bushes. In fact, his only friend is an ex-hippie whose doubtful morals send ripples of scandals through the village. Then, when he’s attacked by a group of swastika-clad thugs in a car park, he decides to take drastic steps towards insulating himself from the outside world…

A Knock at the Door, which sees Eva Hanagan deploy her wit and macabre panache with unerring skill, is an incisive and moving social commentary that will linger long after the final page.

Eva Hanagan was a Scottish author. Her novels include Playmates, In Thrall and Hanging On.