Details: Bill Smith sits in front of his old Underwood typewriter. After much pencil-tapping and a few false starts, he begins the story of Bill and Polly Smith, colourful quayside photographers in Bordeaux who believe they are on the trail of a pair of murderous criminal lawyers. Bill Smith threads other stories through his comic novel, from Goya’s missing head to romance in the Canadian Arctic, from a Grave Constitutional Crisis in the UK to the delights of the back page of the Bordeaux newspaper Sud Ouest. Impressively, he manages to pull off this tremendous juggling act – until something very unexpected happens.
