Paperbacks

CARSON HOWAT

Making love A Conspiracy of the heart ***
By Marius Brill
Black Swan £6.99

RELEASE OF THE WEEK

PLAYFUL, inventive and kaleidoscopic, the mysterious Marius Brill and conspiracy-ridden Paul Pennyfeather, both of whom are touted as the authors (though really it's award-winning playwright Brill himself), unravel a romance, comedy and spy story in one in this fiction within a meta-fiction.

London bedsit dweller Miranda Brown, devourer of trashy romances, discovers a book called Making Love in the local library, a revelation of the true influence of love on our lives, so revelatory that it is the last copy left in the world. MI5, once it discovers that Miranda owns it, opens up its "Love Nuts" file and sends in a secret agent to arrest Miranda's heart and destroy the book. The book itself narrates the story, and is also in love with Miranda.

Confused? You won't be. Brill's words paint scenes as absurd as a Monty Python sketch, action as wittily topsy-turvy as Jasper Fforde and characters as enjoyable as the Little Britain creations of Matt Lucas and David Walliams. Boundlessly eccentric fun.