This is a stupid, ridiculous mess of a book. I loved it.

#2 in the Mortdecai series, and it's probably better to have read #1 first. There are a few specific references back to #1, but mostly it's so you already know Mortdecai and Jock.

Note that this was written in 1979 (reissued 2014 in the form I read), so there will be a few things that are less politically correct than current readers expect. Not much though.

Mortdecai keeps getting manipulated - be several different people - into impossibly difficult situations; but each time the author has set it up more or less believably. And he's consistently just capable enough to keep himself alive. To be clear, he's against some rather heavy hitters, and we keep seeing that he is (or was) one himself.

Wodehouse meets secreat agent meets master thief, with complete disrespect for anything except fun. Read them all!