A nutty religious cult abducts a herd of prime gazebos (huh?) and it’s up to bumbling P.I. Mars Candiotti to rescue them. Mars chronicles his quest in my comic mystery Zither.

Guided by his magically prescient IHOP waitress, Mars strives to mitigate the shocking global consequences of the gazebo heist, even though he has no idea what the word mitigate means. Mars finds five Important Clues in the index of the (awful) book he is writing about the case: Butterscotch, John Travolta, Trombones Venetian Blinds, and Wind Chimes.

As Zither swallows its own tale, Mars finds it increasingly tricky to distinguish between real people and his rambunctious fictional characters. Zither becomes the romper room where his reality meets fantasy - and get frisky with each other.

Using his (stupid) clues, Mars’ international odyssey leads to an explosive conclusion in the Panama Canal. Teevees around the world tune in to watch live coverage of “Carnage in the Canal”.

Amid the lunatic havoc that is Zither there is (of course!) an epic love story as Mars meets Marian, the brainy librarian he dreamed of. Marian says his books are "slapstick existentialism with subjective reality couched in parable". (This is news to Mars). But is Marian real?

Is any of it real?

Tom Gallagher