"I am Charlie Mortdecai. I like art and money and dirty jokes and drink. I am very successful . . ."

But right now the Hon. Charlie Mortdecai -- degenerate aristocrat and amoral art dealer -- is up to his earlobes in trouble. Chief Superintendent Martland is looking for a stolen Goya and thinks Charlie either has it or knows where it is. Unfortunately, he's right. Worse still, possessing the painting is proving to be something of a liability for poor Charlie, and his thuggish manservant Jock. Because, if they're not careful, some very nasty men with guns are liable to make them very dead . . .

On the front of this book there's the tag-line "The result of an unholy collaboration between P.G.Wodehouse and Ian Fleming" and as I'm a fan of the former, and am currently working my way through all of the Bond stories by the latter, I couldn't resist buying all three books in the trilogy. I was surprised that I had never heard of this series, originally published between 1976 and 1976, but then I discovered the imminent release of the film Mortdecai with Johny Depp. What a coincidence!

The story is a tongue-in-cheek romp and treads the line between the sublime and the ridiculous, just the sort of throwaway book for a long journey or rainy holiday.

passed on to a friend