Pistols for Two, Breakfast for One - Tapa blanda

English gentleman seeks easy life featuring exquisite tailoring and fine women. Tiresome encumbrances such as political intrigue, murder or Mafiosi need not apply.

An episode in the life of Hugo Hammersley - formerly of HM diplomatic service - bon vivant, self-confessed genius and serial connoisseur of the fairer sex.

Through a series of chance encounters, Hammersley is shoehorned into investigating the murder of a notable British citizen in Italy. Complications surface, however, when Hammersley finds himself recruited by a leading Mafioso to assist in his current enterprise: the overthrow of the Italian government.

Where the Mafia leads, beautiful women will always follow, and Hammersley finds himself in more than one compromising but familiar position - and not just because of the raging Mafia turf war.

Through a mixture of his usual allies - charm, cunning and damned good fortune - Hammersley is left standing (just about). Whether he makes it safely back home with the elusive gold coin in his pocket... well, that may be another story.

Matthew J. Dick is frequently described by those who have had the pleasure of his acquaintance as "at once masculine, sensitive and poetic", apparently without irony. An idler and a shirker, he tries to avoid challenging activity of any kind lest he find it tedious. More acute (awake) readers may interpret this as a fear of failure, but that is entirely untrue: Dick has no fear of failure, it being a life-long companion of his.

The author is often charged with being a killjoy, an accusation which never fails to delight him. He dislikes coriander. Intensely.