If two swallows do not a summer make, two novels, no matter how similar, are no doubt insufficient to start a new literary sub-genre (no matter how ‘sub’). On the other hand, fashion is said to reflect the Zeitgeist; and biography, in this turbulent millennium, has become both favoured and fashionable. Is it possible then that quite soon a small shelf of the local library’s collection will be grouped under the heading ‘Biography as Threat’?