My Face Shall Appear on the Banknotes

This book describes the close friendship between a certain Jack Maguire, a politician, finally to become Prime Minister of Britain, and one Natalie Klein, who is a dishonest, thoroughly amoral, promiscuous hearse-driver. She gets up to endless mischief on the bier rack. The two protagonists come from different backgrounds. Maguire hails from the slums of Toxteth and Natalie comes from a wealthy newspaper family in London.

Natalie has a perverse fascination for the dead. Maguire, on the other hand, is consumed by ambition and a desire to become Prime Minister. Maguire’s motto, “My face shall appear on the banknotes and my profile will be engraved on the coins” says it all. Natalie goes out of her way to help him become Prime Minister, in return for his kindness towards her, but only by devious means, which are an anathema to him. The story reaches a climax when their paths cross and they fall out.

Eleanor Berry is the author of over 20 published books and says her first brush with literature was when she broke windows in Ian Fleming’s house at the age of eight. Of Welsh ancestry, she was born and bred in London. Eleanor specializes in black humour and the works of Gorki, Dostoevsky, Gogol, Edgar Allan Poe and James Hadley Chase have strongly influenced her writings. Two of her novels are available in Russian and a third, which she refrains from naming, is being made into a film. This is Eleanor Berry’s fifteenth book with The Book Guild. She resides in South-West London.