The singer of the ‘Lumberjack Song’, vendor of the Dead Parrot and leader of the Spanish Inquisition has written another novel. It is Michael Palin’s second, called The Truth. On the cover, a sticker certifies that this is the authentic text ‘as read on BBC Radio 4’, and on the back is a portrait of the national treasure gently smiling, as so often seen on BBC television. It is rather tiresome when publishers exploit electronic achievements to sell written works of fiction; but it would be unfair to penalise Palin for his celebrated niceness. His novel deserves to be judged on its own. The Truth is a very good story, very well told.
The protagonist, Keith Mabbut, is a battered 56-year-old idealist who has betrayed his ideals. When young, he was honoured for writing about a factory whose effluent was polluting the local water supply.
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