The Wrong Boy

by Willy Russell

(Black Swan, £6.99).

Just like people who tell you they have a wicked sense of humour, books that promote themselves as "a comic masterpiece" or "achingly funny" rarely are.

This, Willy Russell's debut novel was published in hardback last year. Producing it in paperback may give it a wider audience, but it hasn't made it any funnier - or believable, for that matter.

The success of any book stands or falls on whether or not the reader believes the story. The problem, for me, with The Wrong Boy is that I don't believe it.

I don't believe that its hero would write such long, detailed and prosaic letters to his rock hero Morrisey - which is what the book is all about; just letters from Raymond Marks to Morrisey.

They are churned out during an eight-day journey between the M62 Services and Grimsby, and on the timescale alone, I cannot believe it would be possible for someone to do what Raymond does.

Sad to say, there is none of the brilliance of Educating Rita, Blood Brothers, Stags and Hens or Shirley Valentine here.

Even more worrying is the fact that the author often gives masterclasses on how to be a writer ... hopefully, on those occasions, he sticks to plays.

David Chapman

PS IF you really do want to read a comic master-piece try e by Matt Beaumont (Harper Collins, £6.99).