As If

[poliphilo]

The hero of the thriller I've just read is a man my age- which is to say around 60- who wakes up in a hospital bed to find he's been shot in the leg (the exit wound is the size of a dinner plate), nearly drowned- and that he's suffering from short-term amnesia. So what does he do? Turn over and go back to sleep? Take early retirement? Hell, no; he's got a case to solve. He walks out of hospital with a pocket full of half-inched morphine capsules- and goes haring around London, confronting scary people, getting into fights, defying authority, not sleeping, not eating, exploring sewers, in a remorseless quest for justice and personal redemption.  Yeah, of course he does.