A Pretty Kettle of Fish
“Take me back to dear old Blighty…”
Welcome to the whacky world of Blighty – it’s a bit like modern-day Britain, but without moped bandits or Danny Dyer. Blighty is Blighty, and doing very well on its own, thank you very much. What was once known as ‘Europe’ is now referred to simply as ‘Over There…’. The Monster Raving Loony Party are in Government (and doing a sterling job). However, something is amiss – and Government Troubleshooter Gabriel Antrobus, from the Department of Troubleshooting and Minor Repairs – wants to find out what it is.
Mercurial brainbox Lionel Cosgrove is in a coma having had a road-smash in posh Shropshire. Cosgrove’s greatest claim to fame is that he never gets round to finishing anything. But Gabriel finds evidence from Cosgrove’s computer-generated avatar that perhaps the great man was working on a new project – nothing less than a way of transforming the laws of physics. If it succeeds, goodness knows what might ensue…
Working alongside his on-off girlfriend (or so he hopes) Naomi, a freelance journo and indefatigable freeloader, Gabriel also uncovers some suspicious goings-on at the leading perfumiers The House of Lizard. Head honcho Verulam Viridian has creases in his trousers so sharp you could shave your armpits with them. But what’s he got up his sleeve…?
Navigating a trail of evidence that includes a fake parking voucher scheme that bamboozled the lads at the DVLA, Teutonic hairdressers, a strange plague of phobias, meaning people are becoming paralysed with fears of everything from intermittent drizzle to the letter ‘w’, burning seaside piers, Crazy Golf and a nasty bang on the old bonce for Antrobus senior, Gabriel is determined to sift events to the core and save the day. And what’s that persistent smell of fish?…
A Right Old Ding-Dong
We’re back in the crazy world of modern Blighty, where the Monster Raving Loony Party under Prime Minister Gibbering Lord phphipps are still firmly in control – or are they?
Sinister entrepreneur Dr St John Vomkiss has a head on his shoulders – or rather, it’s his head, but someone else’s shoulders. He’s survived in a cryogenic tank for the past five years but now is the time for him to get that magnificent cranium reattached to a donor body. And after so long out of the game, there are so many things he wants to get involved in – bellringing, druidry, bringing back creatures from the medieval bestiary to life and putting them in London Zoo – is there no end to the philanthropic goodness of this award-winning business leader?
Gabriel Antrobus, now assisted by his old flame Edie Summers, his apprentice at the Department for Troubleshooting and Minor Repairs, has his hands full. There’s the case of the invisible bank robber, for one; then there’s that giant fatberg (‘Big Norma’) threatening to block the entire sewerage system of Old London Town; that should really have been a job for the Department for Sanitation and Unspeakable Messes, but in a moment of weakness, big-hearted Mr Chadwick agreed to help out. Then there’s that incredibly annoying song that no one can get out of their heads by Fred Fuckwit and the Freeloaders.
This time Gabriel’s job is made even more difficult by the attempts of unsympathetic new Department Head Garrick Muddiman to turn the Department into a Think Tank, and Gabriel even does a spell of stir. But with Edie at his side, not even celebrity cannibal chef Kenwood Twotton can prevent him from getting to the Truth…
A Proper Can of Worms
These are strange times in Blighty. Things are happening – and then not happening. One day a gameshow contestant suffers life-changing injuries – the next he’s perfectly alright. The popular Fake News Show gets cancelled – and then it’s back on the air as if nothing ever happened. Carl Ventricle’s beloved X71 bus is taken out of service – and then reinstated. What’s going on?
Edie and Gabriel, irrepressible Troubleshooters, are struggling to make sense of things. As if this wasn’t enough, Gabriel is sent to work undercover in the feared Rapscallions Gang – their fiendish sticky bun scam threatens to undermine one of the cherished institutions of Blighty: the school dinner lady. Can Gabriel thwart the gang’s dastardly doings before the escalating war with rival gang the Scallywags boils over? And can Edie get Hubert Passage, Blighty’s best hope for Olympic gold, back to what he does best – moaning and grumbling? Is Brian Brainbridge, up and coming minister in the Monster Raving Loony Government, risking his fledgling career because of an understandable chivalrous impulse to shield slightly damp fellow bus traveller Mandy Simpkins from the rain? And what role in all these murky affairs is held by that indeterminate personage known only as ‘the Echidna’?
Sir Gadwick Chadwick and his team are faced with their toughest challenge yet, since no-one can even make up their minds as to whether in fact Blighty is facing an existential threat, whether Reality itself is about to be torn loose from its moorings, or if the new initiative to do away with the boring old decimal system in favour of Numerological Diversification is partly to blame for all the confusion. In the world of Blighty, nothing is ever quite what it seems…
Ghostly Gavin
It all happened so fast.
One minute Gavin was cycling along wondering if the girl with the red hair would ever notice him the next he was – nowhere.
The Afterlife. A strange nowhere-place, in which Gavin meets a boy called Muffler and a girl called Gertie – perfectly normal. Except that they’re Victorian children. And ghosts.
Life – or death – in this strange new place takes a bit of getting used to. But it isn’t long before Gavin and his new friends are taking trips back to Victorian London and medieval England (one of the perks of being a ghost is you can travel back in time). Gavin teaches a horrible old Victorian schoolmaster a lesson he won’t forget in a hurry.
But he misses Phoebe, his sister, and his friends. Back in the Land of the Living, he manages to make contact with Phoebe, and sends an email to his old mate Jay – who’s quite surprised to hear from his deceased pal.
All is not well, though. An old spirit called Quilter, an old shipmate of another of Gavin’s new friends, Varney the Quartermaster, appears, and there’s something not quite right about him. Whenever kids come a cropper or have an accident, Quilter always seems to be around. And when he tries to hurt Sasha, the girl with the red hair who was on Gavin’s mind when he had his sudden encounter with the carpet van, the ghost-boy knows he has to act…
