To be continued, or, Conversations with a toad

the long version

Douglas Findhorn Elder is in a sorry state. He's just turned fifty, split up with his girlfriend and been pushed out of his job at the local news rag. On the night of his birthday, he makes an unexpected new friend: a talking toad. Setting aside the obvious problem, Mungo the toad is the most sensible person Douglas has met for years. And when the man gets embroiled in a wild-goose chase that leads him out of Edinburgh and across the country, naturally the toad goes with him. Awaiting the duo at crumbling Glentaragar Manor are a hundred-year-old firebrand grandmother, a split-personality alcoholic/teetotaller, an elaborate whisky-smuggling conspiracy, and maybe even a shot at redemption ... This gloriously surreal romp proves once and for all that the important things in life - friendship, romance, a funeral hearse stuffed with crates of bootlegged whisky - come when you least expect them.