One of the most amusing novels of the year by a long shot, THE LONG SHOE fits like a glove with laces.
A crime caper featuring a talking cat and a mantra that you don’t have to have a quirk to be quirky, THE LONG SHOE does not have a traditional gumshoe as its protagonist but a bathroom salesman, Matt, whose career has gone down the plug hole and whose public prosecutor girlfriend, Harriet, has suspiciously gone missing.
Is it kidnapping because of a high profile case she is working on or is she having time out of a relationship that seems to be undermined by an over zealous, seductive neighbour?
Whatever.
Out of the blue he is offered a job that comes with a cheap luxury flat in Harriet’s favourite building, Satsuma Heights. But what’s his new job really about? And could the purchase of a very long shoe improve his situation?
Ask his cat Goodmonsun or consult with carnal minded neighbour Carol, or the enigmatic Kiara from Lansdowne Estates. They may all have the answers. But then again… A cat has a tongue and so does a shoe. Can either or both lick this mystery?
The whole issue of surveillance is, well, under surveillance in THE LONG SHOE, the pros, the cons and the dilemma of privacy and security and whether the twain shall meet. Voyeurism versus vigilance, the pervy versus the penetralia.
Yorkshire gangster and a yoga guru are among the quirky characters who Matt quizzes to find some answers to these questions, a quest that continues to compound with every page turned.
As they say, if the shoe fits, wear it, and THE LONG SHOE fists like a foot, unlikely and utterly absurd. And Mortimer makes a fist of it.
But as the great fictional sleuth Sherlock Holmes often uttered, “the game’s afoot!”. Maybe he was a having a seven per cent solution fuelled peer into the future and a prophetic squiz at THE LONG SHOE.
THE LONG SHOE by Bob Mortimer is published by Gallery Books an imprint of Simon & Schuster.
