Henry Blain, a sixty-something Liverpudlian, is prison cook, Shakespeare lover, and a murderer. The prison he works in is called Strangeways, and his love affair, with a 50-year-old reporter, takes place against the backdrop of the 1990 seige. At first vilified by the prisoners--who understandably blame him for the quality of the food they're served and devastate his garden with missiles flung from the roof--Blain later becomes their hero. Along the way we learn he has murdered two of his wives, one mistress, and a blackmailer, and buried them in the garden. A meditation on food and digestion, with a large measure of sex and fantasy, and a handful of murders thrown in, this is an anarchic, funny, irreverent novel.