Book excerpt: Charlie Mortdecai is a louche art dealer with some distinctly dubious friends in the London underworld and some great connections to the British upper classes. He features in the three brilliant black-comedy thrillers originally published in the 70s and collected in this volume: DON'T POINT THAT THING AT ME, AFTER YOU WITH THE PISTOL, and SOMETHING NASTY IN THE WOODSHED. 'A writer capable of a rare mixture of wit and imaginative unpleasantness' Julian Barnes