This is the fourth novel from Charles Higson, who found fame as writer, producer and performer on the BBC-TV comedy series THE FAST SHOW. His previous novels have set a high standard in their mixture of comedy and thrills, and the new one is no exception, although it does take off at an even more extreme tangent than its predecessors.

The unnamed hero wakes up in a bad mood, not helped by the weather forecaster getting it totally wrong once again, and so, when Mister Kitchen calls around to inspect the car he has for sale, he ends up killing him. As you do. No problem; he simply has to dispose of the body before it's discovered, and then everything will be OK again. He has a good plan, because he's done this kind of thing before, but this is just not his day, and the elements all conspire to defeat his attempts. As he battles against unsurmountable odds he merely digs himself deeper and deeper into the mire, and even consumption of the complete pharmacopoeia of drugs does not seem to help.

Higson has produced a minor classic whose scenes of drug induced frenzy stand comparison with Hunter S Thompson's FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS. It's also a very funny book, in the black comedy sense, although with some thought-provoking comments on ecology, evolution, religion, and the British class system. A fast-moving rip-roaring riot of a read. ( )