I seem to have a very slow learning curve, which is not a comfortable admission for someone who works for the Department for Education. Uncomfortable, but unavoidable as, yet again, I found myself in the predicament of having finished my previous book without having made adequate literary provision for the commute back home. I didn’t even have my Kindle with me, and, being out of signal range, I was reduced to seeing what books were already loaded on my iPhone.

I think I downloaded this in a fervour of misplaced enthusiasm, after hearing about another of Allbeury’s novels, ‘The Twentieth Day of January’ which had some pertinence in the run up to President Trump’s inauguration. I chose poorly with that book, and I repeated the error here.

Perhaps my response to this book was exacerbated by the fact that I had just finished an excellent spy thriller, Mick Herron’s ‘Spook Street’ which was one of the finest in that genre that I have read. Allbeury’s book was of an entirely different character. Emotionally stilted and labouring under the weight of a plot whose implausibility matched the woodenness of its characters.

I was left wondering why Allbeury bothered. More to the point, why did I? ( )