This novel is something a little different for me. It is a satire set in the
UK at the present moment. There are striking parallels between these days and
the 1930s. There’s a lot of racist people around who are crawling out of the
woodwork as they have been encouraged by the implications of the Brexit vote.

====

He took the au pair out of the boot and placed her gently on the path to the house, with her legs wide apart. “If any of those rotters come along, they won’t be able to resist that,” he sneered, “they’ll be sniffing around for ages.” With that he sprinted off round the back of the cottage and approached the porch: ”Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman, a Welshman, and a Scotsman,” he boomed. A green light came on inside the house and Tompkins jumped up the steps and flung open the back door.

“Hello Tomcat,” said a voice.

“Binnsy, how are you?” asked Tompkins, “how’s the Foreign Office doing?”

“Comme ci, comme ca, as they say in Deauville, just across the water.”

“Rather, I suppose they would” said Tompkins, “is the GOM here yet?”

“Almost, Tomcat, he’s swimming the last two miles, just to be on the Safe side.”

“Sounds like my uncle, just to be on the safe side, as you say.”

“The others will arrive via boat from further along the coast in two minutes.”

“Make sure they come in the back way, there’s a distraction at the front, which I left for any rotters to lap up.”

“What is that?”

“It’s Stalky Stark’s au pair, who met with an accident, so I agreed to take her with me. He’s been giving her a good seeing to, when his wife was away, but the au pair died whilst we were talking, and the police were coming, so I brought her along”

“You didn’t indulge on the way over here, did you?”

“Good god, no, she’s dead, very hairy, and from Albania, so it was not very appealing.”

There was a rendition of the password at that moment, and Binnsy’s henchman swung the green lantern backwards and forward to denote safe passage.