Seventy Two Virgins
Written several years ago when the suggestion that he might one day be crowned Mayor of London was something which would have made a good joke on Have I Got News For You, ‘Seventy Two Virgins’ is Boris Johnson’s first attempt at writing fiction. My sister and I are both huge Boris fans and so my mother bought us the book when it was still in hardback a few Christmases ago as a present to share. My sister read it fairly promptly, but for reasons I can’t explain I never quite seemed to get round to it. I devoted months of my life to struggling through weighty German classics like Buddenbrooks and der Zauberberg and somehow I forgot about poor old Boris until last weekend when I finished Rob Roy and was suddenly at a bit of a loose end for exciting reading matter. I went eagerly to the study and began scanning the shelves in an attempt to find where my sister might have put it when she finished with it, but our bookshelves at home are rather overloaded and despite my best efforts, I couldn’t locate it at all 
In the end I had to call her (thanks be to Skype!) and between us we figured out that it was hiding behind a Russian dictionary and a copy of Doctor Zhivago.
Having finally found the book, I was more than a little apprehensive about starting it. I adore Boris so much that to find he had no literary talent whatsoever would be rather a blow, and ploughing through an embarrassingly poor novel out of pure loyalty was not a task which I relished. Also I was a bit apprehensive about the description on the back cover which labelled the novel as political comedy. The last book I read which described itself in that manner was some sort of dreadful effort by Sue Townsend, I can’t remember exactly but think it was called something along the lines of ‘Number Ten’, and I didn’t find it amusing in the slightest. Fortunately, in this instance I was pleasantly surprised 
For a start, Boris writes in a far more intelligent way than the casual observer might give him credit for. Indeed, I am certain that the novel was filled with classical allusions which most of us mere mortals have not been sufficiently well educated to pick up on, much less properly understand. Secondly, the story line is genuinely funny and the characters capture the imagination. At some points I was genuinely laughing out loud, and at others I really didn’t want to put it down to go out, so well was the plot flowing
To adequately describe the plot would be an utter impossibility, so convoluted it becomes, but the backdrop to the action is a US Presidential visit to the UK in the aftermath of the Iraq war. Security is high as protestors line the streets, waiting for the presidential car to arrive on it’s way taking the man himself to make an important speech in Westminster Hall. Unbeknown to the combined forces of the UK and US secret services, four hapless suicide bombers have hatched a cunning plan to hijack the speech and blow up the assembled politicians. The ringleader is a blatantly Pakistani man who nevertheless possesses a passport in the name of Jones and got his ideas for bomb making whilst studying hairdressing at the university of Llangollen. He is aided by a couple of more hardened criminals who have spent time in Afghan training camps, and a kid with a wonderful Wolverhampton accent who isn’t entirely sure he wants to be a martyr but is hanging onto the thought of the seventy two virgins he is going to get in Paradise
Having stolen a Black Country ambulance, the terrorists embark on a fraught journey across Central London, passing through numerous security cordons and yet in a series of farcical errors, failing to be detected by the police. There are some wonderful characters who cross their path on route; the cheerful Nigerian traffic warden who nearly meets a sticky end when he attempts to have the ambulance clamped for parking on a double yellow, the nervous American sniper who ultimately ends up hanging from a plinth in Westminster Hall attempting to shoot Jones with rhinocerous tranquilizer, and of course the hero of the piece, a bumbling, Boris-like politician who after several hundred pages of not quite succeeding in his attempts to thwart the plot, ultimately ends up doing something rather brave and saving his political career
This is an “anything that can go wrong does go wrong” tale of epic proportions, and yet the characters and their motives are so well drawn that it remains highly believable. The story is so well paced that there isn’t so much as a boring moment, and I will most definitely be reading it again, most probably on a day when I need cheering up. Thoroughly recommend it, and still fancy Boris like hell
Tags: Books, boris johnson, seventy two virgins