Beef Tea (67) and Marlowe Philips (40) are private detectives who are on a case that takes them through the USA, Mexico and finally to Spain. They are following the dangerous criminals Wilma and Lance, who are, in turn, trying to kill them. Wilma and Lance meet up with various other criminals, including the evil Small Boy Called Elgar. As they endeavour to catch up with their prey, Beef Tea and Marlowe Philips, Wilma and Lance run across some strange characters, like Boll Weevil, the Texan peanut farmer, Fat Al, the Mexican drugs baron, or Tobias Jugg, the captain of a tramp steamer, and several celebrities, like Bob Dylan, Edgar Broughton and Captain Beefheart, together with a weird menagerie of animals. As they journey on they reminisce, talking about and criticising or praising such things as varied as cricket averages, Play-doh, Marcel Proust and Roger Whittaker. Various sections are written in the styles of Faulkner, Virginia Woolf, Hemingway and Thackeray, to name but a few. The mystery ends with a modern enactment of the last scenes of Hamlet.

Sample Chapters

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CHAPTER ONE