Percy Applegarth

Percy Applegarth writes the Toby & Doris capers: light, very British comedies of crooks, country houses and the England of 1968, somewhere between Swinging London and the vicarage fête.

Toby Lockhart was very nearly educated at a good school and can sell almost anything that doesn’t exist. Doris Pym sells cigarettes in a Soho club and can sell the rest. Together they keep falling into real crimes while trying, more or less, to commit pretend ones.

Expect forged paintings, ransom notes in cut-out letters, butlers with pasts, vicars with funds, and a narrator who is always slightly less in control than he would like you to think. If you enjoy P. G. Wodehouse, Ealing comedies or a cosy mystery that doesn’t take itself too seriously, pour a gin and start with An Honest Fiddle.