THE SPY WHO INSPIRED ME

For legal reasons, this novel does not mention J*mes B*nd.

Which is a shame, because it is a comedy based on the idea that I*n Fl*ming’s famously macho spy might have been inspired by a woman …

It is April 1944, and chic armchair sailor Ian Lemming is accidentally beached in Nazi-occupied Normandy. With no access to a razor or clean underwear, and deprived of his cigarettes, Lemming wants to go home. But he is stranded with young, hugely experienced female agent Margaux Lynd, who is on a perilous mission to unmask traitors in a French Resistance network.

So, as she bullies him across France, Lemming receives a painful crash course in spy craft, and starts to fantasize about a fictional agent – male of course – who would operate only in the most luxurious conditions, and lord it over totally subservient women. A world-famous spy is born …