The Gun Seller

British actor and comedian Hugh Laurie's first book is a spot-on spy spoof about hapless ex-soldier Thomas Lang, who is drawn unwittingly and unwillingly into the center of a dangerous James Bond-like plot of international terrorists, arms dealing, high-tech weapons, and CIA spooks. You may recall having seen Laurie in the English television series Jeeves and Wooster; Laurie played Bertie Wooster, the clutzy hero of the P.G. Wodehouse comic novels that originated those characters. The lineage from Wodehouse's Wooster to Laurie's Lang is clear, and, if you like Wodehouse, you'll probably love The Gun Seller.

Occasionally, the publisher's hype gets it right, and this is such an occasion. British actor Hugh Laurie's writing debut is a skillful mix of Bertie Wooster and James Bond. Laurie's hero, Thomas Lang, once an officer in the Scots Guards, is now an amiable underachiever. He's also a decent chap, so when he is offered a contract to assassinate an American industrialist, he goes to the American's London home to warn him of the danger. In short order, he's in trouble with British intelligence, rogue CIA crazies, and international arms merchants and is forced to infiltrate a small terrorist cell to protect the American's gorgeous daughter. Thomas is alternately feckless and heroic and always arch, puckish, or ironic. Author Laurie employs a glibly discursive Wodehousian style that works as a charming counterpoint to the moments of Bondian derring-do. The Gun Seller is a thoroughgoing pleasure from beginning to end, and Laurie, who has a series of movie roles all lined up after his work in the remake of 101 Dalmations, is a very talented writer.

It's no surprise that this fey first novel from British TV comedian/writer Laurie (Jeeves and Wooster, etc.) should feature an updated Bertie Wooster pitched headlong into international intrigue, terrorism, and really embarrassing scrapes. Thomas Lang's an inoffensive sort who hasn't done much since mustering out of the Scots Guards. One day, apropos of nothing in particular, a Canadian arms-dealer offers him $100,000 to assassinate industrialist Alexander Woolf. Not wanting either the money or the opprobrium of having kept quiet about it, Thomas hies himself to Woolf's house, where he finds--not Woolf, but a minder who tries to break his arm, and Woolf's well-armed daughter Sarah, who could easily break his heart. Worse, after Thomas is taken in and questioned minutely, yet ineffectually, by the Ministry of Defense, he realizes that the Canadian power broker who set him up was none other than Woolf himself. It's only the first act in a farcical series of adventures that will have Thomas changing his name and cover story more often than most readers change their bedclothes, as he careens from the American Embassy in London to a terrorist cell in Switzerland to a climactic bit of derring-do with a killer helicopter over Casablanca, playing by turns Sarah's solicitous protector, Woolf's avenger, and a Minnesota adjunct terrorist who has to prove his loyalty to The Sword of Justice by killing a Dutch finance minister. Throughout all this balderdash--as Thomas goes through all of James Bond's paces (unarmed combat, ritualistic double-crosses, soft-focus sex with Third World terrorists)--the jokes are reliably funny; but since the premise and its development are nowhere more outrageous than in straight-faced examples of the genre, the japery eventually grows monotonous. Still, every episode is awash with giggles, even if the whole production seems directed at audiences who think Get Smart would have worked better as a six-hour BBC series.

Thomas Lang, former professional infantryman, and nowadays witty, decent and courageous loser, gets mixed up with a racket of the arms trade. He gets involved with idealists, the British and US secret service, and revolutionaries, and finds love. This is a high-speed very funny and gripping, twisted crime/spy-story. I virtually read the book in one sitting and liked it very much. 
If you like science fiction from Douglas Adams or fantasy fromTerry Pratchett you will like this book as well. It is the first novel of Hugh Laurie, so there is some painting with a broad stroke, but I would love to read more from him.