TIME AND MISS WHIPLASH: A dark comic thriller (Thomas Time Book 1)

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A hot summer in London in 2006, and Thomas Time is a man undergoing a severe mid-life crisis...
An American trying to cope with the eccentricities of living in the mad city that is 21st century London, he has many intractable problems to deal with: an aging ex-hippie mother who is thinking of marrying a dolphin; an ex-wife, Jackie, who has bled him dry and left him constantly on the run from the British taxman; a Chinese girlfriend, Dr Peggy No, who not only shares her name with a James Bond villain but who has a predilection for leaping out at him naked from bathtubs. And, worst of all for Thomas is a feeling that, at thirty-nine, life is fast passing him by...
It would be better at least if he was being fulfilled by his work, but his job as a private detective mainly involves helping the rich and famous solve embarrassing personal problems..
Like his present clients, for example – the high-flying Labour politician Digby Renfrew, and his wife Philippa, who need Thomas to find their wayward missing teenage daughter Hannah. And the well-known human rights lawyer Amanda Forsythe yet needs Thomas’s help to find out who has sent her a DVD of a high-class movie called Lesbian College Girls, in which she herself was unfortunately indiscreet enough to appear during her hard-up student days.
Thomas has severe trouble concentrating on his work with all the female distractions he encounters in this blazing hot summer: his own girl Friday for example, Samantha Twite, who is apt to display her red thong panties in the office far too often for Thomas’s peace of mind; then there is the statuesque headmistress of Hannah’s select private school in Dorset, Rachel Carstairs, a.k.a. “Miss Whiplash”...
Thomas’s search for Hannah Renfrew, and for the person blackmailing Amanda Forsythe, soon leads him into a series of mysterious and troubling events: a headless corpse is found on the railway near Liverpool Street Station, the wealthier suburbs of London are rocked by a series of vicious daylight robberies, and somebody seems to want Thomas dead. Along the way Thomas also encounters the ghost of Jimi Hendrix, back from the grave, a cross-dressing Tory MP and his sex-starved wife, a Ukrainian prostitute who boasts that she glows in the dark, and a corrupt policeman, Ken Kintrea, who wants his own back on Thomas for destroying his marriage.
Worst of all, though, are Ray Tully and his grandson Joey, members of a family of East End villains who have now graduated to the major league of crime, and their rival, a mysterious Russian billionaire with mafia connections called Sergei Kutuzovsky.
As he gets himself into deeper and deeper trouble, Thomas finds himself relying on the help of the women in his life: his sexy girl Friday, Sam, of course, but also the enigmatic Dr No - and most surprisingly of all, Miss Whiplash, who turns out, when push comes to shove, to be much more like Emma Peel of The Avengers than Anne Robinson of The Weakest Link...