Flogging the Field

by Philip Moss

After nearly blowing the whistle on his hopelessly corrupt bosses' expense-fiddling at Her Majesty's Department of Tax & Revenue Affairs, maverick taxman, Peter Figgis, is sent off on Operation Wild Goose to investigate alleged VAT fraud at game fairs. He doesn't find any. What he does find is a game fair company, Gewgaw Limited, fronting an international drugs cartel run by evil sociopath and pervert, Ieuan Henge. Helped by American flunky, Walton, Central Asian vamp, Russlana, and an array of other incompetent ne'r-do-wells, Henge needs to secure funding from Mexican and Middle Eastern investors whilst simultaneously trying to assassinate the previous owners of Gewgaw Limited, Penelope and Croesus, who are reluctant to abandon the family business. Follow Peter Figgis as he travels the game fair circuit encountering Mexican drug dealers, wayward falcons, vengeful bosses, ghillie suits, rumours of inter-species sex, potatoes, murderers, mastiff-owners, unchristian language, cider, other traders, small black terriers and - even before the apocalyptic climax at Halfrod Hall Game Fair - love, in the comely form of under-cover police sergeant, Jayne Harvey

240 pages, Paperback

First published June 18, 2015

Reviews

[Donald Burgess]

For anyone who has ever attended a Country Fair and wondered what kind of heavy grind goes into producing that "zombie corpse" look in stallholders prior to the third coffee of the day.
The regular attendees will note familiar faces behind many of the displays of wares at those great pay-to-enter souks of everything cammo, tweed, and leather.
In those familiar faces will be noticed a creeping mortification as the season goes on, tolerances decrease with time wasters , their offspring and their canine companions, an eagerness to pack up on the last day, and an air of the living dead.
Those who fervently make claims that the outdoor life is such a healthy one should live the life of a regular Country Fair stallholder, it isn't so much the daily grind as the nightly alcohol fueled otherworldly Stygian existence which is the hard work. The back of a stock van isn't exactly en suite, nor is it 5 star accommodation, but for much of the season it will be home.
With a brief to penetrate this other world and expose revenue wrongdoing,Peter Figgis, a dyed in the wool civil servant is sent undercover, a lamb to the slaughter, the madness begins.
Written by the Ed Reardon of the Country Fair circuit, Philip Moss, the scourge of many a Game Fair organiser and Champion of the Retailer. This account of life inside the after hours Country Fair is at least a peek at the quotidian grind of the journeyman retailer and writer. It may go a little way to explaining "the look". Written with an eye for the comic and a vivid ability to bring the life of the Country Fair costermonger to the page, Flogging the Field is a belly laugh inducing look at the Country Fair life as well as a great story.

[Chris Warren]

Mildly amusing. Not good about shooting - pheasants in February? Small detail perhaps but annoying. A little derivative and definitely not Tom Sharpe.