But way too many characters and not funny and there was not the usual Elton surprise factor in the story line. What I cannot understand is people writing this book off because they do not agree with the politics in it. A series of apparently random murders draws amiable, old-school Detective Mick Matlock into a world of sex, politics, reality TV and a bewildering kaleidoscope of opposing identity groups.

Both campaigns eagerly fall on every social media trend and news item, spinning it to their cause, to outrageous effect.

He may have had some thoughts about economic or social policy at some point in his life, presumably. Ben Elton has once again crafted a great satire which questions what has become of our society today and how this controls every single thing we do now. I picked this up because Audible pushed it as a recommendation and because I fancied a break from fantasy. So they decide to ramp up the tension by turning the non-straight non-binary nons- against the heterosexual white couple.

A series of apparently random murders draws old-school detective Mick into a world pig sex, politics, reality TV and a kaleidoscope of opposing identity groups. Lost in a blizzard of hashtags, his already complex investigation is further impeded by the fact that he simply doesn’t ‘get’ a single thing about anything anymore. I have left this story with deep thoughts about several issues which I am still pondering about and this means I have been highly influenced by this book and will be thinking about it for a long time. I disagree with others who say that Kvothe is a dislikeable character because he excels at everything (acting, music, magic, academic studies) and lacks flaws.

Beyond that this book also deals with what has long been termed "political correctness gone mad", and it really has gone mad. In this first book of the tale, Rothfuss leads us towards something huge in Kvothe’s biography that’s somehow affected life for everyone – when the book ends, we still have to wait to discover what. I can even include the rabid TERF third wave feminazi who hates trans women into the group of characters that are obviously drawn to be problematic. Malika is the young woman caught up in the international espionage game, falling into an unhealthy relationship with her employer at a ‘fake news’ enterprise.

The Dinner Guest more or less achieved this: I had figured out whodunnit pretty early on but not the motive. You don’t have to be a Brit to find this a good read, but it helps because there are some side characters (with satirical names) who are stand-ins for political figures well-known in the UK. I suppose this isn't surprising given his history of stand-up - he sees the comedy in political life and mercilessly skewers it in this book, treading a fine line between respecting and laughing at political correctness. At least, that's how it starts, and I was perfectly ready to toss the book aside because the implication seemed to be that it was okay to victim-blame as long as your heart was in the right place or something like that.

It did give a look at how mad our society has become and how our outrage is manipulated by hashtags and how lots of us struggle to understand the changing way we identify gender.