In the Seventies and Eighties, Tom Sharpe was a best­selling author in Britain, pumping out a dozen hilarious satires, marked by their savagery. His particular targets were apartheid, the British class system, and political cor­rect­ness. Then he dried up, producing only three books in the last twenty years.

Wilt in Nowhere is his fourth book about Henry Wilt, a lecturer at a third-rate community college, married to the formidable Eva and father of four ghastly quadru­plets. Eva takes the girls to America to stay with her rich uncle in Tennessee. Henry goes on a walking tour of England. He in­ad­ver­tent­ly gets caught up in a case of arson, while she somehow becomes the focus of a narcotics in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

This is fairly funny, but nowhere near as good as I remember his earlier books.