{"product_id":"2940013761254","title":"The Hole in the Wall","description":"The old East End of London was a secret and dangerous place. How\u003cbr\u003e  much thieving and plotting, fighting and knifing and murdering,\u003cbr\u003e  went on there nobody ever knew or ever will know. The police, who\u003cbr\u003e  were treated as a common enemy, went about in threes. But towards\u003cbr\u003e  its own people it could be protective and sentimental. Above all,\u003cbr\u003e  it was alive, rich in its human texture. This was the private\u003cbr\u003e  world which Arthur Morrison--journalist, story-teller and\u003cbr\u003e  collector of Oriental paintings--made authentically his own.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \/The Hole in the Wall\/, which V. S. Pritchett described as \"one of\u003cbr\u003e  the minor masterpieces of this century,\" is a thriller, or perhaps\u003cbr\u003e  more accurately a Dickensian murder story, set in the most\u003cbr\u003e  sinister part of London's dockland, about a hundred years ago.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  Young Stephen Kemp goes to live with his grandfather, who keeps an\u003cbr\u003e  old inn--The Hole in the Wall--leaning crazily out over the river.\u003cbr\u003e  And it is through Stephen's eyes that we see the tale of villainy\u003cbr\u003e  and vengeance develop, and meet the strange but very human\u003cbr\u003e  characters involved.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  What happens is exciting and dramatic, and described with the most\u003cbr\u003e  vivid artistry but it is the atmosphere--powerful and\u003cbr\u003e  unforgettable--which has made \/The Hole in the Wall\/ a classic.\u003cbr\u003e  The East End, as Arthur Morrison knew it, has gone, destroyed by\u003cbr\u003e  Hitler's bombers and post-war planners--but in these pages it\u003cbr\u003e  lives again, dark, evil, squalid, and yet a place which men and\u003cbr\u003e  women loved with a warmth quite missing from the London of tower\u003cbr\u003e  blocks and hygienic shopping centres.","brand":"WDS Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47145778938096,"sku":"2940013761254","price":2.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013761254_p0.jpg?v=1763589933","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013761254","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}