The Cockroach

That morning, Jim Sams, clever but by no means profound, woke from uneasy dreams to find himself transformed into a gigantic creature.

Jim Sams has undergone a metamorphosis. In his previous six-legged existence he was ignored or loathed, but in his new incarnation he has woken up to discover he is the most powerful man in Britain: the Prime Minister. His mission: a nationalist revival, with or without Europe. Nothing must get in his way: not the opposition, nor the dissenters within his own party. Not even the rules of parliamentary democracy.

In this bitingly funny, Kafkaesque satire, Ian McEwan engages with scabrous humour a very recognizable political world and turns it on its head.