The novel starts with a phone call, "Mr McCrindle's fence has gone slack", and sees the three main characters duly dispatched to the scene of Tam and Richie's previous job, which they have left in a hurry.

The ensuing Kafkaesque incidents set the tone for the rest of the novel, where Tam, Richie, and the narrator find themselves "sent off" to England in work-related "exile".

Donald's drive for efficiency can be seen as thinly veiled fascism, whilst the "instability of three" deals with the balance of power between the narrator, Tam, and Richie.

[5] It was nominated for the Booker Prize and the Whitbread first novel award for 1999, and was also praised by the (usually reclusive) author Thomas Pynchon as "A demented, deadpan comic wonder".

In 2006, Pawel Pawlikowski directed a film adaptation starring Rhys Ifans, Ben Whishaw, Eddie Marsan, and Warren Clarke but it was suspended in mid-production when the director's wife fell seriously ill and died.