I don't like to pack too much into an ordinary day and this one had already been pretty eventful - two arguments with women, a fight in a pub, a warning from the Old Bill and a fiasco at auction that lost me an exquisite antique Japanese firefly cage. The trouble was, somebody wanted that little gem even more than I did. It was the key that would unlock a secret they'd to anything to keep under wraps, even murder. If only they could only have gone about their dirty deeds without involving me or my friends, they might have got away with it all, but when the master craftsman bravely trying to teach me the art of gadrooning fell foul of them and paid for it with his life, they had me to deal with . . .

A Lovejoy Murder Mystery

John Metcalf's Shut Up He Explained defies expectations and strict definition. Part memoir, part travelogue, part criticism -- wholly Metcalf -- it is thoughtful, engaged, contentious and often very funny. It offers a full does of Metcalfian wisdom and wit, and provides ample evidence that neither age nor indifference nor attack have withered him: he remains as sharp, critical, constructive and insightful as ever. Indeed, this may just be his most important and engaged book. Certainly it will be among his most controversial. What his critics will refuse to see, of course, is that it is also among his most positive, that it is a celebration of the best literature Canada has to offer, the birth of which Metcalf himself both witnesses and actively encouraged. Shut Up He Explained is magisterial, a virtuoso performance melding several seemingly different strands into one coherent narrative, which should delight and entertain as it serves to argue, elucidate and celebrate.

Lovejoy gets married! Languishing in the nick for an antique scam that went belly up, Lovejoy gets an offer he can't refuse from Ellen Jaynor, the brains behind The Anglers Manglers Speed-Datery. If he'll come along, chat up Laura Moon and agree to marriage, an early prison release will be arranged. But with Lovejoy nothing's ever that simple, and whoever said you can't scam a scammer didn't know what he was talking about. In the space of a week, Lovejoy's loony bride-to-be has involved him with delegates from 16 groups representing the world's Lost Tribes, who want him to substantiate the authenticity of their priceless antiques. Oh, and by the way, would Lovejoy also find Laura's ex-husband, who absconded after murdering a young girl? The following week finds Lovejoy even busier. Three of his chums are topped. His illegitimate son Mortimer pops up, then gets kidnapped, prompting Lovejoy to flee Somnell House, the repository of all those antiques, just before it burns to the ground. With so many pretty women to make smiles with (Lovejoy's term for a bit of sex), he barely has time to confront the only woman he's ever really trusted, more fool he, as she sails off with her inamorata from Blackpool's North Pier, accompanied by a boatload of the Lost Tribes' valuables. A picaresque tour de farce. If you crave linear plotting, Gash (The Ten Word Game, 2004, etc.) will send you screaming for Tylenol, but nobody dissembles more brilliantly. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

You know things are going badly when you've been stabbed, hospitalized and arrested for a crime that, not only did you not commit, you actively attempted to prevent. Top that off with a pending appearance in court before a judge whose wife you know rather better than he does, and you start to think that visiting an ancient Irish tomb with a gang of ruthless villains sounds like a perfectly reasonable thing to do. All you have to do is to make sure that you don't end up joining the ancient Irish tomb's ancient Irish inhabitants. Nothing's ever that simple, though, is it? Not in my world, anyway. Women have a tendency to confuse matters and when you're dealing with a deranged scarecrow poet and an eastern European hit man whom you know for a fact has never been further east than Billericay in his entire life, things are confusing enough, don't you think?

I don't much like working for clients. It means that I have to follow someone else's instructions, and I've never been too good at that. When those instructions came from a spirit guide at a seance, I just had to laugh. Well, you would, wouldn't you? The rather attractive young woman whose husband the spook had said I should help her to fine took me on a quest that turned into a trail of lucrative antiques deals, spoiled only when the police came plodding in and I found myself up to my neck in forgeries and murders. Situation normal, really. Then the killer turned his attentions to me, just as the spirit had said he would, and I certainly wasn't laughing an more.

Antiques and women are really the only things that I'm interested in. Getting them in the right order can be a problem, because even a fake antique can be absolutely fascination - especially if it drives someone to commit murder. Antiques and women are what led me to Venice on the trail of the killer, and there my modest talents saw me blagging my way into a job as a tour guide as well as lending a hand as a sculptor. My credentials as a tour guide were as bogus as the forgery I was chiselling and it becan to feel like everywhere I turned, nothing was as it seemed. Antiques and women almost got me killed when the bullets started flying . . .