'Hilarious, joyous and astute' - Nicholas Coleridge
Mild-mannered editor Ben Fairweather is horrified when his genteel religious magazine is taken over by a fanatical movement which holds that animals are closer than humans to God and should receive Holy Communion. Amid a national religious revival, this belief becomes mainstream and Ben is cancelled as a petphobic bigot.
He finds a new job as a pianist in a nightclub. There he meets Anita Scott, a journalist bent on exposing the Russian oligarch Oleg Ogorodnikov - newly elevated to the House of Lords - whom she accuses of cultural vandalism.
The scheming Ogorodnikov is actually involved in something far more sinister: a plot to take over London's financial system. Little realising that his fingerprints are all over the theological unrest too, Ben and Anita are drawn into a world of spies, art forgery, AI and murder, with their own lives on the line.
Anthony Gardner's ingenious caper combines madcap excitement with a deftly satirical portrayal of the crazy beliefs, chaos-spreading Russians and rise of the robots which seem to define our age.
Hardback | 256 pages | Published November 2025
