Another writer worth watching in the current New Yorker

Interesting story in current New Yorker, Goo Book (sic), by Keith Ridgway, writer I'd never heard of, British apparently, this story far more hard-boiled and plot-driven than most New Yorker fiction and seeming to be a story rather than a novel excerpt, though I could be wrong on that, a novel could pick up on this central character, a London pickpocket and petty thief who gets a job as a driver for a London mob boss, then gets picked up by London police who pressure him into becoming an informant. The risk, the tension, are palpable, and Ridgway plays this off nicely against the back story of the driver/thief's ongoing, developing relationship with his girlfriend - book of title is a notebook through which they privately communicate with each other, expressing their emotions and feelings as each writes in the book, but they never talk about what they record in it. Story put me off at the very first with a stupidly vulgar opening line, but one me over quickly with the honesty of its dialogue and with the fast pace of the narrative. Ridgway apparently has a few books to his credit, but is not so well known, at least in the U.S., and maybe he will be blessed by this anointment. As noted in yesterday's post, The New Yorker seldom publishes true short stories any more and, pace its 20 under 40 production, has not championed writers of the short story in any significant way, but the past few issues have brought to the fore some writers that are definitely worth watching.