Of course you’ll miss something. You’re not Kim Newman.

Who is urbane, brilliant, unique, and once carried a swordstick.

Neil Gaiman. Somewhere in America. Three months late.

The introduction to The Original Dr. Shade and Other Stories by Kim Newman, 1994.

Gumshoe: A Book Review

I never actually worked for the old regime. But I can’t see them behaving like that; I mean, I’ve heard that nice Mister Coren on Gardeners’ Question Time, or whatever that program is (“Ah, this is the story about the lady in Luton with the ferrets down her knickers,” “No, I’m afraid not.” “Then it’s Sir Geoffrey Howe?” “Hoohoo, that’s the one,”), and he always sounded very nice. Not a man who’d resort to cheap threats, at any rate.

Not like the current bunch.

One of them rings me up, says he wants a review. This week. Fair enough, I say, when this week? Tuesday, he says. That’s tomorrow, I point out. He says yes, that’s tomorrow. Tuesday.

What if I can’t get it done in time? I ask, all innocent.

There’s a pause at the other end of the line; you can hear him looking up at the Men in Black Suits in the Punch offices, and getting the nod.

Well, he says calmly, then we’d have a blank page. And we’d print your photograph on it. Possibly your address. And we’d tell the Punch readership exactly whose fault it was that they had a blank page this week.

I wouldn’t be able to enter a dentist’s waiting room ever again.

Right, I say. Tomorrow. Put down the phone and describe him out loud. One word. Rhymes with custard, almost.

Okay. Write a review.

Only trouble is, tidied the office last week. Know I had the book somewhere, been tripping over it for a month, called Gumshoe, by some American philosophy professor who gave it all up to become a private eye. Gold cover. Unique. Put it somewhere safe. Tidied it up. Very careful. Somewhere. Somewhere tidy and safe. Probably on a bookshelf. One of the bookshelves, anyway.

Only other trouble is, awful lot of books in here. No problem, just look for the gold cover. Up there on the top of top shelf, climb on the desk, reach up, nearly overbalance, pull it out: Great Sex.

Bugger.

Wonder briefly whether Punch would notice if review of Great Sex arrived tomorrow morning. Men in Black Suits in Punch offices. Suspicious bulges in jacket pockets. No sense of humor . . .

Forget Great Sex.

Review Gumshoe. Remember the title, anyway. Can’t go too far wrong if you remember the title.

Don’t have the book of course. Just Great Sex, funny there being two books with gold covers, flip it open, hope it’ll be Gumshoe when I look at the pages. It isn’t. “She has a magnificent polished body, the globes of her buttocks round and smooth like summer fruit, her breasts high and proud.”

Wonder what kind of summer fruit. Raspberries? Gooseberries?

Go and check with encyclopedia.