Description

Henry Wilt is no longer the victim of his own uncontrolled fantasies. As Head of a reconstituted Liberal Studies Department he has assumed power without authority at the Fenland College of Arts & Technology and the fantasies he now confronts are those of political bigots and reactionary bureaucrats – in addition to his wife’s enthusiasm for every Organic Alternative under the compost heap and the insistence of his quadruplets on looking at every problem with an unflinching lack of sentimentality.

It is only when Wilt becomes the unintentional participant in a terrorist siege that he is forced to find an answer to the problems of power, which have corrupted greater men than he. With a mental ingenuity born of his innate cowardice, Wilt fights for those liberal values which are threatened both by international terrorism and by the sophisticated methods of police anti-terrorist agents. In the confusion that follows, Wilt resumes his dialogue with the unflagging Inspector Flint and is himself subjected to the indignity of a psycho-political profile.

Bitingly funny and brilliantly written, The Wilt Alternative exposes the farcical anomalies, which have become the social norms of our time.

Publisher Review

Made me laugh aloud...a delight from beginning to end. * Sunday Telegraph * A caustic, inventive comic novel. * Times Literary Supplement * A farce touching fingers with a rich comic vision...sublime orgiastic satire. * Guardian * His wit is devastating, his eye for detail exacting, his prose polished, serpentine, elegant and deadly ... as savvy and savage as Evelyn Waugh ... as dazzingly inventive and bizarrely original as P.G. Wodehouse * Detroit News * Sharpe is the funniest novelist currently writing ... I sat curled up with laughter * Time Out *