The great pursuit revolves around a publicity trip which goes horribly wrong. All the ingredients of a good farce are in here - rioting, false identities, grotesque characters, mad passions, trips to police stations and a bit of suspected arson and attempted murder thrown in too. The plot is promising, but somehow it's just not that funny. I enjoyed Wilt, Vintage stuff and Porterhouse Blue, and have read a few of his other books, and I thought that this didn't quite measure up. But it's still worth a read on a rainy afternoon.

Tom Sharpe was born in 1928 and educated at Lancing College and Pembroke College, Cambridge. He did his National Service in the Marines before going to South Africa in 1951, where he did social work before teaching in Natal. He had a photographic studio in Pietermaritzburg from 1957 until 1961, when he was deported... From 1963 to 1972 he was a lecturer in History at the Cambridge College of Arts and Technology. In 1986 he was awarded the XXXIIIeme Grand Prix de l'Humour Noir Xavier Forneret. He is married and lives in Cambridge.