The Seven Days of Peter Crumb, By Jonny Glynn

There are glimpses in this novel of a time when Peter Crumb was a normal, functioning member of society, who had a job, a wife and a child. Now he finds society unendurable, humanity intolerable, and is living in a squalid east London flat; alone save for that part of his personality which has become detached, and lurks in the corner of the room telling him to do terrible things.

He is a deranged, perverted, homicidal lunatic. And during the seven days that he intends will be his last, he will smoke a lot of marijuana, masturbate frequently, assault a prostitute, kill several strangers, mutilate some of their bodies and indulge in necrophilia. And he'll find the inspiration for most of these acts in the pages of The Daily Mail.

There is certainly a satirical edge to Jonny Glynn's debut novel; but for the most part it merely provides the all-too convincing, entirely unedifying experience of spending time inside the mind of a killer.