The Bunny Run. Your "must buy" summer read

If you buy only one book this year, it should be "The Bunny Run" by Tim Topps.

When I picked up this novel I was captivated from the first paragraph on the first page.

I was hooked so much so that I had to read the 166 page book in one sitting. Which is very rare for me.

The novel tells the story of how the protagonist Tim Topps suddenly realises that his marriage, in fact his whole life as he has lived it so far, is at an abrupt end.

For work purposes for many years, he has driven between his two offices in Oxford and Cambridge.

He makes the journey in his beloved car, a vintage Sunbeam Talbot.

The route he takes is familiar to him and he keeps himself entertained on his route by making observations, often wry and humorous, about the villages and towns that he passes through.

He also has some very strong opinions on placenames and their likely origins.

He draws us into his life by telling us little stories (vignettes)  from his own life which, as he travelled with his government official father and his mother, involved trips to many exciting and exotic locations, Remembrance Day in East Africa, then back to England for boarding school, romantic encounters with young ladies and the like. Sometimes in an aside to the reader he will point out that although there is a basis of truth in the particular story that it is not true.

Tim regales us with digressions as to why The Pooh books are, in reality, extremely witty books aimed at the adults who are reading them to the children, rather than being 'pure' children's books.

He tells us about his wife and her horrible family, including his violent and criminal brother-in-law.

Tim likes to correct people almost to the point of it being an obsession. He also has a faith or a conviction that the number seven has some deep significance for him.

Although the book might appear to be a random collection of highly entertaining and very diverting travelogue style musings on the towns and villages he is travelling through and the roads and bridges he is passing over, the book is far, far more than that.

There are several 'markers' throughout the book, plus several threads of bright material that cunningly disguise the real, true nature of the book which will shock, amaze and enthrall you at the same time, when you realise exactly where the journey was always going to end up.

It is published by paperback by Matador at £8.99. I can promise you that it will be the best £8.99 you will have spent in a long time.

The book is available from the bookshop at That's Books and Entertainment, to the righthand side of this review.