of Lord Desai of Saint Clement Danes, is lucky.Dead on Time is indeed timely what with Westminster politicians being caught with their knickers down and their snouts in the trough.

Written at a rollicking pace, the plot  has to keep up with the insistent demands of the media. Momentous decisions have to be made, some times even suppressed, in order to make or miss deadlines. Every minute is crucial when the 7am news of the BBC's Today programme announces that the Americans are geared up to attack Libya. Scotland is also preparing for the first elections of its devolved parliament and the Scottish Nationalists are closing the lead. White, no lover of football, flies to Glasgow to see Rangers confronting Celtic in the hope of making some politial capital for his party's failing fortunes. His problem is that rumours are adrift that he's flirting with  Roman Catholic doctrine and ritual. That, in the estimation of Rangers' supporters, makes him a despised Papist plotter and an ally of the Devil.  Bad, very bad, for the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

Moreover, he has another more pressing problem. Terence Harcourt, a Scot who is his Minister for Europe and currently in Vienna doing what Ministers for Europe are handsomely paid to do, is an ambitious man. At this precise moment Harcourt is tied up with knotty matters concerning European olives but nonetheless such men are dangerous. Most dangerous; especially when alive.

In the meantime, White gets a confidential call from his pal the President of the United States. He is informed that Operation Rosa, the code name for the bombing of Libya, is under way. At 10 pm British time American bombers are scheduled to take off from their Fakenham base in Norfolk and the RAF is to provide logistical support. However, White decides not to inform parliament nor the press. When the bombs fall on Libya and the world knows what has happened, the PM will express innocent surprise and no doubt condemn the action as ill-advised and unnecessarily hasty. Britain would then play the honest broker, an art meticulously honed over the years.

As a precaution, White deputes his Defence Secretary Mary Duggan, a no-nonsense type who never wears make-up and sports jumble sale clothes,  to sort out the Newsnight  journos on TV in case they suss out Operation Rosa. But Jeremy Paxman and his ilk are no mean savagers of politicians and the ensuing interview is brilliantly written. Fortunately for the government the furore over the Libyan bombing is soon sidelined by other more  dramatic events.    

Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac, as the wise Dr. Kissinger discovered years ago. Kissinger had studied, at close quarters, the lothario JFK, his brothers and others of the clan. The sexual appetite of Harry White illustrates this truism. His adroit performance with Sarah, a junior member of his entourage, is decribed at length and in graphic detail. Meghnad Desai could mint millions should be choose to script late night adult movies, the type that a cabinet minister's husband relished recently at the taxpayer's expense.
But back to the story. Ancient antagonisms erupt at the Ibrox battleground. There is a riot, people are killed and the cops have to come in hard. At the same time there is bad news from Vienna and the PM makes a hasty helicopter exit from Glasgow. What happens next? Well read the book. I can't let the cat out of the bag nor even the bag out of the cat.

Ruth Rendell, Lord Desai's colleague in the Upper House, is a leading writer of crime novels. She says that this novel is exciting and unputdownable and close enough to reality to raise a shiver.
I agree with her.

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