Tomorrow's Sunday essay

Will sneak up on you sometime on Monday. But never fear...

…or rather, please do.

Hallowe’en might be over, but this week, once I’ve given it adequate time, we will look into something actually quite suitable for last month: the way fiction gives us the sometimes-delicious opportunity to be the bad guy. The villain. The one who knocks. As Alfred Hitchcock noted, the more successful the villain, the more successful the picture—surely, this applies to literature as well, in ways both obvious and subtle, and not only in stories where the villainy is moustache-twirling and crucial, the evil decadent or rank.

Wait for it… for by the pricking of my thumbs/something wicked this way comes.

—that is to say, please stay tuned for your chance to wear the black hat, coming to you on Monday when you least expect it.

Mwahahahahahahahahaha