- O'Brien, Flann [Brian O'Nolan]. The Third Policeman. Normal,
IL: Dalkey Archive Press, [1967] 1999. ISBN 1-56478-214-X.
- This novel, one of the most frequently recommended books by visitors to
this page, was completed in 1940 but not published until
1967, a year after the author's death. Perhaps the world
was insufficiently weird before the High Sixties!
This is one strange book; in some ways it anticipates
surreal new wave science fiction such as John Brunner's Stand on Zanzibar and The Jagged Orbit, but O'Brien
is doing something quite different here which I'll refrain from
giving away. Don't read the (excellent) Introduction before
you read the novel—there is one big, ugly spoiler therein.
January 2004 