Peter Van Greenaway

Who was Peter Van Greenaway?

Peter Van Greenaway was a British novelist, the author of numerous thrillers with elements of horror and satire.

He was born and educated in London, worked briefly in commercial art and acted in theatre.

His first novel, The Crucified City, is the story of the aftermath of a nuclear attack on London. A motley group of people, accompanied by a mysterious, apparently mute man, undertake a last pilgrimage to Aldermaston. The action of the book takes place at Easter, and it appears that the mute, the last survivor, is the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

Several of Van Greenaway's books are topical political thrillers. Take the War to Washington deals with the Vietnam War, Suffer! Little Children with the Troubles in Northern Ireland. In The Man Who Held the Queen to Ransom and Sent Parliament Packing, a British army captain stages a coup d'état in the United Kingdom; the government he attempts to establish is seen as more democratic and far more benign than the establishment he overthrows.

Other novels incorporate elements of science fiction. In Manrissa Man, vivisection experiments result in a highly advanced species of ape which can reason and talk; while in Mutants a national emergency results from the production of a rapacious species of mouse.