A brilliant performance. There's an assured and terribly macabre depravity about Ian McEwan's short stories - as if some of the characters from early Angus Wilson had been painted by Francis Bacon - Observer
Taut, brooding and densely atmospheric, these stories show us the ways in which murder can arise out of boredom, perversity can result from adolescent curiosity, and sheer evil might be the solution to unbearable loneliness.