The Nick Of Time

Francis King's provocative and adventurous novel looks at the havoc wrought when a young illegal immigrant finds himself in London.

Mehmet leads a double life befriending and lodging with an elderly woman who suffers from MS, while at the same time having an affair with a female doctor and throwing himself onto the London gay scene. Disaster looms when he begins a relationship with a gay protector - and is arrested because of his illegal status.

"A book dealing with modern problems and rightly longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. King is a writer’s writer, his voice utterly convincing."   -  Beryl Bainbridge, Daily Telegraph

"I loved The Nick of Time, very enjoyable and subversive, with a highly engaging hero whose bad behaviour made compulsive reading – his exploits were most entertaining."  -  Margaret Drabble

Francis King wrote some 30 novels but believed he was never viewed as a major writer because ‘the public tends to like its novelists to write the same novel over and over again’. King died in 2011 after a long career as a writer, literary critic and theatre reviewer. Although he came of age during the Second World War, he was a conscientious objector and that same fearlessness was evident when he came out as homosexual in the 1970s. As well as writing, King worked for decades for the British Council and became President of PEN International. His novel A Domestic Animal was also longlisted for The Lost Man Booker Prize.