John Connolly‘s fictionalised look at the life of Stan Laurel is an absorbing and fascinating read with Connolly clearly having done his research on the man‘s life. The literary conceit of never mentioning Stan by his name mostly works and he gets the rhythms of the Laurel and Hardy dialogue right together with the peculiar nature of their relationship, but Laurel the man remains a mystery as Connolly never quite gets what made him tick.