Description
In The Contenders, as the Listener observed, the author of Hurry On Down 'has at last discovered the true sources of his strength'.
The book tells of the clash of two temperaments. Robert Lamb, the artist, and Ned Roper, the industrialist, grow up in the same smoky town in the Potteries and attend the same local school. In adult life each drives fiercely towards success in his own sphere, as much with an eye to outdoing the other as to achievement for its own sake. They quarrel over a woman.
Their struggle is watched through the ironic and tolerant eye of their non-competitive friend, Joe Shaw, a journalist - until, when the story is well advanced, that eye becomes markedly less tolerant, the sub-plot becomes the main plot, and surprises pile up in an unexpected finish.
A brilliant story-written in fireworks, as it were' -Illustrated London News
