[A Demon in My View] is set in the seedy, rundown west London suburb of Kenbourne Vale. The large Victorian houses on streets and terraces which bear the names of Oxford colleges have been converted into flats and bedsitters; some have been demolished, others boarded up…. Into a room on the ground floor of 142 Trinity Road moves Anthony Johnson, who is writing a thesis entitled, "Some Aspects of the Psychopathic Personality"; in an immaculately clean flat on the top floor lives Arthur Johnson, a psychopath who has in the past strangled two young girls: almost too neat a juxtaposition, but in the event justified by its successful handling. The paths of the two Johnsons intertwine; a series of minor, seemingly insignificant events drives Arthur, once more, towards murder. A deeply satisfying and subtly ironic plot, and a good, depressing picture of west London.

T. J. Binyon, in a...