This is Jeffrey Robinson's fifth novel and his 17th book. In such witty and diverting novels as The Monks Disciples and The Margin of the Bulls, Robinson has honed his highly entertaining style, with a particular emphasis on rich and outrageous characterisation. The new book has an eccentric but likeable hero, blithely thinking he has solved life's mysteries until he is faced with a terrifying situation: he loses his job, discovers his wife in bed with her personal trainer and hears that his mother is about to be dispossessed. But aided by a memorable cast of misfits, he begins a search for a mysterious Knight of the Realm who will aid him in his quest to regain his life. The means by which this is accomplished involve some highly unlikely plotting, but the energy and wit with which Robinson marshals his forces keep the reader's suspension of disbelief in place and the characters stay firmly on the right side of plausibility. This functions as both as an audaciously plotted comedy of errors (with a far-from-heroic protagonist) and as a comic thriller of considerable skill. The dialogue, too, is a pleasure, with wisecracks to equal Elmore Leonard at his most mordant.
--Barry Forshaw ( )