The Guardian's weekly political email, the Backbencher is running a competition to win a copy of new writer and part-time Leader of the Opposition Iain Duncan Smith's first book. All you have to do is write what you imagine should be the first paragraph of this novel, using the publisher's blurb as a guide. As this is all too priceless for words, I'll print it here in its entirety:
John Grande, a struggling London art dealer, is thrown what he thinks is a lifeline when he is given the opportunity of handling a collection of rare masters, housed in a villa above the cliffs of Positano in Italy. There, on the beach, he briefly encounters Laura Buckley, the glamorous producer of New York's most prestigious TV news programme. Neither could know that their lives were to become linked in a terrifying web of intrigue and deceit. Set on both sides of the Atlantic, Iain Duncan Smith's debut novel is an ingenious fast-paced thriller with an intriguing cast of characters reaching the highest level of office. All are being controlled and manipulated by a powerful, evil man seeking revenge for incidents reaching back to World War Two, involving art thefts, possible Nazi collaboration and murder ... his actions prove to be explosive.
I'll post my efforts here when I'm done.
Oh, and for extra kudos, underline every cliché in the passage above.
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