Sorry, we're going to have to let you go - Graham Lord

Peter Hallam has it all - a good job with all the perks, a loving wife, a comfortable circle of friends and financial security. The only blots on the horizon are a layabout son and a dotty mother-in-law hunkered down in the spare room. But within days of the appointment of a new M.D. he is out of work, and at forty-five it seems his working life is over. As his debts mount at the same rate as his job applications are rejected the rest of his life falls apart - his friends drop him, his son sneers at him and when he is forced to put the house on the market his wife leaves him for his 'best' friend. Spiralling into despair and possibly destitution he discovers the hideous reality of how failures are treated in the caring '90s, but he also discovers a stalwart and highly unlikely ally - Monica, his mad mother-in-law. Born into a tougher world than he has ever known, she bolsters his ego and urges him back onto his feet. Her philosophy of never letting the buggers get you down also embraces the view that revenge is the sweetest dessert, and between them they embark on a thoroughly satisfying mission to ensure those who dish out bitter medicine have a good dose of it themselves.

Graham Lord was Literary Editor of the Sunday Express, where Dick Francis was racing correspondent for 16 years.

Lord has fashioned a neat fable from Hallam's fall and rise, exposing many of the irritations of modern life en-route. The denouncement is satisfying and Peter's mother-in-law, Monica always ready with a cheering dirty limerck, is a glorious creation.
SUNDAY TIMES

THE TIMES

This sorry tale of house repossessions and attendances at job centres will strike a chill into anyone who is over 40. What's more, it's also very funny.
MAIL ON SUNDAY

A brilliantly cynical look at modern corporate Britain. I enjoyed it thoroughly...
MANCHESTER EVENING NEWS