Overview

Sammy Rice is a weapons scientist, one of the 'back room boys' of the Second World War. A crippling disability has left him cynical and disillusioned - he struggles with a drink problem at home, and politics and petty pride at work. Worse still, he fears he is not good enough for the woman he loves. The stakes are raised when the enemy begin to drop a new type of booby-trapped bomb, causing many casualties. Only Sammy has the know-how to diffuse it - but as he comes face to face with real danger, all his old inadequacies return to haunt him. Can he, at last, prove his worth and put his demons to rest?

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9781474601160

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One of the hopes of British novel-writing ... A writer of genius -- John Betjeman The missing writer of the Forties ... Balchin's professional skill gives a meaning to brilliance which the word doesn't usually possess -- Clive James NEW REVIEW [An] inexplicably neglected author THE TIMES Balchin writes about timeless things, the places in the heart -- Ruth Rendell SUNDAY TELEGRAPH A little masterpiece like Nigel Balchin's The Small Back Room speaks to our own time, but with so much literary experience behind it -- Shirley Hazzard Balchin has been absurdly overlooked for too long -- Julian Fellowes I'd place him up there with Graham Greene -- Philippa Gregory A remarkable storyteller DAILY MAIL A brilliant novelist ... A writer of real skill NEW STATESMAN He tells a story gloriously DAILY TELEGRAPH Balchin has the rare magnetic power that draws the human eye from one sentence to the next EVENING STANDARD Probably no other novelist of Mr. Balchin's value is so eminently and enjoyably readable ... [He] never lets the reader down -- Elizabeth Bowen TATLER Balchin has done so much to raise the standard of the popular novel TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT A superb storyteller SUNDAY TIMES Balchin can tell an exciting story as well as any novelist alive SUNDAY CHRONICLE The novelist of men at work GUARDIAN He can always be relied on to give us the set-up magnificently BBC One of the best writers, and certainly one of the best stylists, to come out of the war years -- Michael Powell Perhaps the most successful British author to emerge during the war SATURDAY EVENING POST One of the hopes of British novel-writing ... A writer of genius -- John Betjeman

Author Information

Nigel Balchin was born in 1908 and graduated in Natural Science from Cambridge University. During the Second World War he worked as a psychologist in the personnel section of the British War Office, before becoming Deputy Scientific Advisor to the Army Council. He wrote numerous books, including How to Run a Bassoon Factory (under the pseudonym Mark Spade), and Darkness Falls from the Air. He died in 1970.

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