For all the flaws, though, the account of the actual life of the hospital lingers. The rows of temporary huts that shortened and lengthened like a bar graph of each war's progress; the darkened, drugged psychiatric wards where the young R D Laing worked and plotted his famous revolt against such treatments; the almost instant corrosion of the hospital's proud bricks and stone by the damp air of the Solent . . . A restless amateur like Hoare may deal slightly too quickly with such vivid discoveries. But he may also be less likely to take official claims to orderliness at face value than professional military historians; and more likely to make you want to go straight down to Southampton.

Spike Island (the name its inhabitants gave the area centuries before), is as singular as Hoare's previous work: simply, his chosen subject is so interesting it is astonishing to consider that no one has written of it before. However, few could combine such rigorous scholarly accuracy with Hoare's narrative flair. His literary tones - ghostly, haunting, reminiscent of du Maurier - find their echo in Netley's grim history.