A Place Called Winter (by Patrick Gale)

I’ve only previously read one book by Patrick Gale - ‘The Whole Day Through’ - and while I quite liked it, it didn’t inspire me to look for any more of his books. But our reading group had allocated ‘A Place Called Winter’ for this month’s read, so I was quite looking forward to it.

It starts well, if rather dramatically. Harry - who is the viewpoint character throughout - describes in some detail a rather archaic ‘treatment’ for unspecified crimes in a psychiatric hospital. We learn later t...