As Bad As It Gets

Chris Shovelin #2

by Julian Rathbone

Chris Shovelin, the Bournemouth PI with a marital problem, is on the move again. Coming out of Mombasa, where he has been checking out the death of a millionaire's son in a diving accident, he decides to treat himself to a safari. But an international food conglomerate feels forced to protect itself from the consequences of Shovelin's intrusion into its affairs and his "vacation" takes one wrong turn after another. From a mugging in Nairobi, through meetings with lions and a Maasai warrior, to a truly scary escape from the sewers beneath Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, Shovelin faces beatings, shootings, wild elephants and a crazed killer who will not give up.

320 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 2003

About the author

Julian Christopher Rathbone was born in 1935 in Blackheath, southeast London. His great-uncle was the actor and great Sherlock Holmes interpreter Basil Rathbone, although they never met.

The prolific author Julian Rathbone was a writer of crime stories, mysteries and thrillers who also turned his hand to the historical novel, science fiction and even horror — and much of his writing had strong political and social dimensions.

He was difficult to pigeonhole because his scope was so broad. Arguably, his experiment with different genres and thus his refusal to be typecast cost him a wider audience than he enjoyed. Just as his subject matter changed markedly over the years, so too did his readers and his publishers.

Among his more than 40 books two were shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction. Both were historical novels: first King Fisher Lives, a taut adventure revolving around a guru figure, in 1976, and, secondly, Joseph, set during the Peninsular War and written in an 18th-century prose style, in 1979. But Rathbone never quite made it into the wider public consciousness.
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