The Vacant Casualty by Patty O’Furniture is what it says on the front cover – a parody. It was published in 2012 and the real name of the author seems to be Bruno Vincent. Obviously Patty O’Furniture (patio furniture) is a jokey name which should alert any readers as to the sort of book it is, if they don’t know what the word parody means.

I had a look on Goodreads and there are a few reviews from people who more or less trashed the book but if you have a daft sense of humour, which I do then it definitely has its moments.

It begins as you would expect as a bit of a J.K. Rowling take off, but I haven’t read anything by her although I did watch the TV adaptation of The Casual Vacancy.

To begin with there are quite a lot of mentions of a famous author that nobody is allowed to speak about, so I’m presuming that the inhabitants of the Scottish Highland village which Rowling lives near or in are under instructions not to speak to the media or give any information out about her. The author pokes fun at just about everyone though, including himself.

It turns into a parody of detective fiction and cop TV programmes. Sam is a writer who wants to write a detective novel so he becomes the unofficial assistant of Inspector Bradley of the C.I.D. – he has recently been promoted after years as an ordinary cop on the beat. Bradley is absolutely useless at his new job and Sam decides to guide him through the necessities of his new station in life, which mainly consists of taking him to pubs and just about turning him into an alcoholic.

The blurb says: In this potty-mouthed, depraved, disrespectful parody, strewn with casual violence and sexual deviancy, you will discover aliens, farting tea-ladies, car chases, serial killers and lashings and lashings of tortoise milk. But no immigrants. This is the countryside after all.

I found it to be mildly entertaining but I think the author missed a lot of opportunities humour wise.