Combined Forces: Being the Latter-Day Adventures of Maj-Gen Sir Richard Hannay, Captain Hugh 'Bulldog' Drummond and Berry and Co.

1950s Portugal. Clubland's heroes have been forced out of austerity Britain by poverty and the weather. In their now elderly limbs lies still the hope of one last adventure. Jonah Mansel's Rolls (c.1933) is patched and worn, though the engine's still sound. Hugh Drummond wheezes a bit and Phyllis has run to fat. Boy Pleydell's old wound in the knee gives him gyp, Berry and Daphne have sold White Ladies, spent the lucre, too. Hannay's the oldest of the lot, and a retired Major-General's pension doesn't go a long way these days. Senhora Rodrigues's villa for retired people of distinction is just the ticket; weather's good, chance of the odd round of golf, a spot of prospecting, bit of fly-fishing, tolerable fodder and some very decent wines. Cheap too.

They wouldn't take it, of course. So when a chance of a bit of business for the old country (oh, all right, quite a lot of cash actually) looms, they jump at it. And right into it. Ancient they may be, but they're still useful in a rough corner, and the old adventurers' blood forever courses in their veins. They need it; this could be the tightest spot they've ever been in.

This is an enchanting novel from a more robust age - an age when the wicked were evil swine, rather than social misfits, when Rolls-Royces - proper motor-cars - purred smoothly, when the beautiful, the clever and the brave performed prodigies aided only by bevies of loyal henchmen, hordes of sovereigns and vast quantities of unlicensed weaponry. For the many thousands of people who have wished for years that Richard Hannay, Bulldog Drummond and Berry and Co. could have just one last adventure, here are two. Brilliantly characterised, wonderfully witty, deeply affectionate, and as truly exciting as only the adventures of those noble warriors can be, the book is a hilarious tribute to the stylish and much loved Clubland Heroes and their creators.