The Dirty Area

A superb thriller from a master of the genre.

Nicholas Lamert Luard was a writer and politician.

He was educated at Winchester College and Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he read English and was taught by F.R. Leavis. He met Peter Cook through Footlights. A very short academic career was replaced by club management on the strength of a legacy. He co-founded The Establishment in the early 1960s with Peter Cook.

He then went into writing. He was one of the Lords Gnome of Private Eye.

With Chris Brasher, Nigel Hawkins and Denis Mollison, he founded the John Muir Trust in 1983. Nick served as Chairman from 1991 to 1997.

Luard stood as a candidate for the Referendum Party in the 1997 general election, against Michael Portillo in Enfield Southgate.

Luard married Elisabeth Longmore, the food writer, in 1962.