Patrick Gale

Gale has carried off yet another ridiculously crazy tour de force… The plot ricochets between the dozens of richly drawn characters, and one of the many reasons to devour this novel at one go is that it will make it easier to keep track. Some other reasons are that this book is a delightful read, albeit a strange one, and that if started at bedtime, pages will be turning inevitably into the wee small hours. If E.F. Benson, Iris Murdoch and Fay Weldon were to produce a story in some mad collusion, the result might be something like this.