The Lemon-Squash Continental Hotel

Guido Roberts a young man in London in 1967 is fascinated by the libertine philosophy of Aleister Crowley the notorious Victorian practitioner of the Black Arts. Crowleys use of hallucinogenic and mind-altering drugs like mescaline hashish and heroin make him a prophet Guido believes for the 20th century. Guido becomes entangled in a growing enthusiasm for the occult and for witchcraft as young English feminists reclaim witchcraft as a form of female spirituality. Wanting to distance himself from a hostile witch coven while at the same time anxious to evade a criminal gang he persuades his father a petty criminal known as the Major to send him on a journey to the Far East. He accompanies the old mans girlfriend in a group travelling to the kingdom of Afghanistan where his father claims they can buy fashionable goatskin coats and arrange to export them to the West. Unfortunately he is deceived by his father and by his fathers business associate the Afghan Hound Kamal Pasha who is a guard at the British Museum. The Major and Kamals real purpose is to conceal Afghan miniatures stolen from the British Museum in Guidos suitcase. The historic miniatures could then be sold by Kamal in their country of origin. Guido discovers the smuggled pictures in Iran in time to bribe the local police and avoid prosecution for suspected heroin possession. The Iranian police deport him to Afghanistan where he survives an attempted murder by Kamal before witnessing his fathers friend being shot down in the street. Guido is then free to travel on to Pakistan where he manages to sell several valuable miniatures. He then returns the remaining pictures to the British High Commission so they can be given back to the British Museum. He is finally repatriated to London a museum benefactor he believes and a British patriot who has outsmarted his father.