The landscape is flawless the trees majestic the flora & the fauna are right & proper. All is picturesquely typical of rural England at its best. Sir Giles an MP of few principles & curious tastes plots to destroy all this by building a motorway smack through it to line his own pocket & at the same time to dispose of his wife the capacious Lady Maude. Sir Giles recruits to his side Hoskins a corrupt local official Lord Leakham the environmental equivalent of a hanging judge & Dundridge a troublesome bureaucrat with an unhealthy passion for order. Against this powerful lobby are ranged a mere handful of local residents led by Lady Maude. Hardly at first sight a team to withstand the batteries of official inertia Compulsory Purchase Orders & bulldozer blades. But Lady Maude enlists a surprising ally in her enigmatic gardener Blott the Dresden born ex-Italian naturalised Englishman in whom adopted patriotism burns bright. Lady Maudes dynamism & Blotts concealed talents enable them to meet pressure with mimicry loaded tribunals with publicity & chilli powder & requisition orders with wickedly spiked beer. This explosively comic novel will gladden the heart of everyone who has ever confronted a bureaucrat & spells out in riotous detail how the forces of virtue play an exceedingly dirty game when the issue is close to home.