Excuse me, but what was that title again? "W.G. Grace's Last Case"? Now, would that refer to some medical case handled by the good doctor when he didn't happen to be at the crease? Or is this one of those "famous person as detective" stories, and can the reader expect to see W.G. chasing down criminals during the tea interval?

Well... yes, to the latter. But only sort of. I mean, this wild ride (or, as we say in reviewing circles, "delightful romp") of a book does cast a fictionalized version of the Victorian cricketing superstar in the role of sleuth, but it's anything but a straightforward mystery story. Indeed, W.G. Grace's Last Case is no straightforward anything! Instead, author Rushton has created a fast-moving (so many flashbacks and fast-forwards, your head will swim), literate, and hilarious tale that manages to send itself up even as the, er, plot genuinely holds the reader's interest.

If any one genre is being parodied here, I suppose it must be those novel-length Sherlock Holmes pastiches in which the Great Detective is somehow made, in the space of a couple hundred pages, to bump into an entire Victorian Who's Who. This time, though, it's Mr. Holmes who is conspicuous by his absence... but he's hardly missed, for even without him Rushton has assembled a marvelous (and motley) collection of late- 19th Century celebrity characters, both real and fictional, for his flannel- clad hero to cross paths (and swords) with.

Our story: The setting is a post-"War of the Worlds" London, and it's a lovely June afternoon at Lord's Cricket Ground. Dr. William Gilbert Grace, in fine form as always, is facing the bowling of one Castor Vilebastard (pronounced "Villibart," the name's owner insists), a thorough rotter who is somehow also an MCC member (though playing, that day, for the opposition). Suddenly, the bowler drops dead, and the call for "a doctor in the house" brings forward not only the burly batsman himself, but also Drs. John Watson (of Baker Street) and Henry Jekyll (who's not looking quite himself, it must be noted). The cause of death is soon ascertained-- an Apache arrow in the bowler's back-- and it turns out that Grace is actually able to shed some light on the situation for the authorities. Some years earlier, he and Vilebastard had been co- participants in a subsequently hushed-up MCC tour of North America, whose events W.G. narrates in hilarious detail. Suffice it to say that Vilebastard made plenty of enemies (not to mention all the wrong sorts of friends) on the eventually- dubbed "Tour of Shame," and it was clear to W.G. that, when they'd parted, the man was involved in some nefarious scheme.

The question is, can Grace, Watson, Jekyll, and Scotland Yard Inspector Lestrade-- along with A.J. Raffles, Charles Dickens, Oscar Wilde, H.G. Wells, and a host of others-- sort out the tangled strands of the plot, uncover the late Vilebastard's scheme, and set everything right?

I'm not telling, of course. Instead, I advise you exert the considerable effort it will take to locate a copy of this book, one of the cleverest and laugh-out-loud funniest things I've ever read, and find out for yourself.

Note: to learn more about author Willie Rushton, the noted (and lamented) British humorist, TV/radio personality, and cricket-fan, visit one of these links (each will open in a new window):

• His entry in the Museum of Broadcast Communications archive
• Rushton bio at The Heritage Foundation
• At the Tony Hancock website, Rushton's obituary from The Daily Telegraph (it's the third article on the page)
• Another tribute, this one among the BBC's "I'm Sorry, I Haven't a Clue" pages
• A short piece by Rushton written for The Guardian in '84, about an upcoming stint at the Edinburgh Festival
• At the Peter Cook website, here's a Rushton cartoon from Private Eye, 1962, "The Satirist"