Somewheres between a fantasia and a farce this tells the incredibly intricate story of The Doomsday Book (presumably a dossier compiled by a presumably dead double agent) and its search by Leo Marsh, a writer, with the collaboration of Karen, the wife who had deserted him many years ago, and against the competition of Maxim, a man who has more than nine lives and loses two of them here. Probably best read as a satire, it is outrageously inventive and should succeed in confusing and amusing almost anyone.