While meeting a work colleague for a drink one night, his attention is taken by an attractive young woman who is sitting alone reading a copy of The Satsuma Complex. As for the cosy crime caper that Gary gets mixed up in, our unremarkable but amusingly stoic legal assistant finds himself at the centre of a murder investigation when his work colleague, Brendan, is reported dead following their evening in a south London pub. He then competed in the Taskmaster: Champion of Champions series against Noel Fielding, Josh Widdicombe, Katherine Ryan and Rob Beckett, coming last. And although I can’t imagine non-fans emerging anything other than baffled, those who are used to his brand of weirdness will find that the book works well as a thriller, too.

Well, if what you want is a book that reads the way that Mortimer talks, there’s plenty to satisfy you here. Gary Thorn is a middle aged guy (who talks to squirrels) and finds himself in the middle of a missing co-worker mystery. On the day of his hospital admission, he married Lisa Matthews, his girlfriend of 22 years, under a special marriage licence express from London. Gary loves a regular chat with a squirrel in his playground, and his favourite chat-up lines include, “Have you ever needed to use a tourniquet in your work environment? It became the bestselling memoir of the year, was named Times and Sunday Times Humour Book of the Year, and was shortlisted for Non-fiction Book of the Year at the National Book Awards.There’s a bit of a mystery, a bit of romance, and a bunch of insight in human beings and their behaviour. Rose Ransom, who has the highest status permitted to women under the caste system designed by (real) Nazi ideologue Alfred Rosenberg, is busy rewriting works of literature to ensure they are in accordance with the ideals of the regime.

That – as Mortimer described in last year’s fine memoir And Away…– was pretty much his life before he met Vic Reeves and found new purpose and joy. Kingsolver’s raw and empathetic writing make this a gripping and vital tale for our times too, passionately tackling Big Pharma, healthcare, addiction, education and poverty. In April 2010, Mortimer appeared on the Sky1 panel show A League of Their Own, on Andrew Flintoff's team. Britain, like Europe, is still under German rule, with Queen Wallis – widow of King Edward VIII – on the throne. A page-turning story with a cast of unforgettable characters, The Satsuma Complex is the brilliantly funny smash hit first novel by bestselling author and comedian Bob Mortimer.

It makes for a journey of fun, an adventure filled with insight, comic reasoning and zany encounters. So it’s not surprising that, while reading The Satsuma Complex, I could hear his voice every time his lead character, Gary Thorn, opened his mouth. On 17 November 2007, Mortimer appeared as Reeves' hairdresser, Carl, in the weekly radio sketch show on BBC Radio 2 entitled Vic Reeves' House Arrest.