Sergeant Cyrano O'Hara had lost the lost property cupboard. Its whereabouts were a mystery. In fact the entire police station had been behaving strangely of late. Corridors were there one day, gone the next. The downstairs hall sometimes ended in a motorway. The building had been rearranging itself ever since a conjuror had been locked up in one of the cells. Sherlock Holmes never had to deal with this nonsense. Times are tough for the men and women of Old Grethwick Police Force. As if one-legged murderers, ghoulish thespians, drug-dealing vicars and human-hating buildings aren't enough to deal with, someone has just made seventy-five politicians disappear. At least that last one has cheered everybody up a bit.

Although Ian Wild is one of the world's leading authorities on naturist parasol kleptomaniacs, he would like to point out that he always showers fully clothed and does not have a criminal record. He has written comedy for Ireland's RTE Radio One and won awards for short stories - most recently the 2009 Fish International Short Story Prize, but only to take his mind off undressing Mary Poppins. He was not naked writing this book. He was wearing an umbrella which he found in the hand of someone who wouldn't let go until he bit their wrist.