OVER EXPOSURE - Hugo Rifkind

Macaulay Lewis has a major problem. Sure he was there the night that shadowy society cat-burglar Fingers stole the Bushman's Thimbles (diamonds that is) from Gemma Conrad's nipples, with the weathergirl not even noticing they had gone. But he kind of didn't update the copy that subsequently went out on his own newspaper's front page so there was no mention of this startling event. Bit embarrassing. Even more embarrassing because the glittering social event was that paper's own Diamond Awards night.

Mac is pretty used to stuffing up though - he spends most of his life in a slightly hung-over increasingly desperate search for a life. Fingers, though, is not the life he wants. The powers that be at the newspaper seem to think that Fingers is somehow their story and despite everything, they hope that Mac is their inner track to the cat burglar. Everybody else in the London media has other ideas. Mac, alas, finds himself more and more at events where Fingers pulls off one of his grand heists and slowly people start to wonder whether Mac and Fingers are more closely acquainted than initially thought. Whilst everyone else is madly speculating, Mac is just trying to get through the day and maybe get laid.

As Fingers increasingly pulls off more elaborate thefts, Mac finds his job security more and more threatened by his total inability to get anything right about this story, and he's no closer to getting his ex-girlfriend Elspeth to fancy him again. He also can't get sister Janie to stop dating losers and sister (christened Margaret - now Miriam) to stop playing the role of Jewish Princess. With their Scottish father and absent Jewish mother, Mac, Margaret and Janie are a close set of siblings despite everything.

OVER EXPOSURE is a bit of a romp through the grotty, silly, self-obsessed world of B-grade celebrity, heavy duty partying and the gossip columns of London. The famous names are liberally sprinkled throughout the book, but for non-UK based, not addicted to TV readers, it will require acceptance that these people were probably famous for some reason and the ability to just let that roll, because frankly, this particular reader has only heard of one in every 10 of the names.

There's also nothing terribly serious about OVER EXPOSURE, but the silliness is quite catching. Readers will have to be prepared for a bit of debauchery and some overt drug use and drinking, but Mac's a great character and there are some good, strong secondary characters orbiting around him. OVER EXPOSURE is a really fun, silly caper book, built around these elaborate celebrity thefts and a bloke who is just trying to straighten up and get the girl.