I love this book. Written by the handsome E.I. Wong (his words), the hopefully formerly depressed human of A Narcissist Writes Letters to Himself fame*, Poet Robot is made of exactly the kind of twisted humour I wasn’t sure other people had. It’s about the hilarious cruelty of life, the truth that we are nothing more than monkeys in shoes. The fact that most of us, in those dark corners of our minds that we don’t ever dare show anyone else, all want to kill some of the other people**. It’s human darkness warped into comedy. It also contains the world’s best lesson on the dire consequences of misplaced commas.

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So I just watched The Thirteenth Tale on BBC Two and wow! What a gripping story! Normally, I am quite happy to only half pay attention to whatever’s on the box, but within about fifteen minutes, I was hooked. And I was trying to write.

It usually takes quite a lot to distract me from writing. This had a mystery I felt I could work out without actually being told outright. The clues were all there from the start, no sudden curve-balls or anything that I couldn’t possibly have known (I’m looking at Midsomer Murders now – I mean, come on! Give me at least a tiny clue!). It was clever, it was well-written and it kept my interest.

But by the end, I still felt that something was missing and I just couldn’t work out what. It was well-acted, the story hung together and all my questions had been answered. So I googled it.

Turns out, it was based on a book.

(And here’s the proof of how good I thought it was: I bought it right away.) If you’ve not seen it, check it out, because if it kept me entertained, you’re going to love it.