The Spy Who Inspired Me

For legal reasons, this novel does not mention J*mes B*nd. Which is a shame, because it is a comedy spy story based on the idea that I*n Fl*ming's famously macho secret agent might have been inspired by a woman ... A comedy spy spoof set in Occupied France in 1944, by the bestselling author of A Year in the Merde, 1000 Years of Annoying the French and How the French Won Waterloo (or Think They Did). It is April 1944, and chic armchair naval officer Ian Lemming is accidentally beached in Nazi-occupied Normandy. With no access to a razor or clean underwear, and deprived of his cigarettes, Lemming just wants to go home. But he is stranded with a young, though hugely experienced, female agent, who is on a perilous mission to unmask traitors in a French Resistance network. So, as she bullies him across France, Lemming receives a painful crash course in spycraft, and starts to fantasize about a fictional agent - male of course - who would operate only in the most luxurious conditions, and lord it over totally subservient women. A fictional spy is born ...