Eager young private investigator Twyford Fripp (the unfortunate first name being connected with his father's trade as a lavatory salesman, as he apologetically tells everyone unless they can shut him up first) has just taken on his first case. He is asked to find Margot, the wife of Retired Rear-Admiral Peter Legg, who has fled him and his insatiable desire for his wifely comforts, or rumpy-pumpy as he puts it, and persuade her to return home. She has gone to Perranpoppen, Cornwall, to stay with her old female friend, Pauline Grizzner, a public school secretary helping the headmaster to prepare for a royal visit to mark the opening of the school's new sports complex.

Meanwhile Legg's GP Ryan Hooper (a media star, thanks to his regular slot on 'Wakey Wakey', the nation's favourite breakfast TV programme) is trying to treat him for his satyriasis, the male equivalent of nymphomania, with some hush-hush wonder drugs from California. Enter Madam Forde, the dominatrix who runs an escort agency and doesn't take threats to her business lightly (I nearly said lying down), is horrified at the potential loss of her best male customer and will spare no efforts to get him back.

They have reckoned without the involvement of Joseph Brewey, a dodgy entrepreneurial Perranpoppen farmer, Mick Masters, a semi-retired rock star and his girlfriend Mattie, or Biffo the wolfhound from hell. Too late Margot finds out that Pauline is a raving dyke who will do anything to get her into bed. Having been confused by the over-zealous police for a notorious Australian terrorist and terrified out of his wits by Biffo, Fripp has hidden in the attic directly above Pauline's bedroom, just as she has donned the rubber catsuit and got her incapable tipsy friend between the sheets.

Total chaos ensues, but his troubles have only just begun, when he finds himself airborne with the ruthless Pauline in a hijacked hot air balloon and they are
running dangerously short of fuel. And as for the school's royal visit, that doesn't exactly go according to plan either...

This racy, uninhibited farce will really have you laughing out loud. If you've ever enjoyed Tom Sharpe's novels, you'll love this. The author is already well known for his TV and theatre work, and I for one hope this first novel won't be the last.