A Stranger in the Earth

the long version

"Twenty-two-year-old Horace Littlefair arrives in London to work on his great-uncle's newspaper. His country upbringing has not exactly prepared him for life in the fast lane, and he cuts an unlikely figure with his out-of-date wardrobe and old-fashioned demeanor in modern-day London."--BOOK JACKET. "Unprepared, underpaid, and overdressed, he is plunged into the discombobulating world of love, racism, blackmail, political intrigue, and rabies. He is out of step with the rest of the world, threatened by impending disaster wherever he turns. But Horace is helped along by unlikely and unusual friendships with a Ugandan Tamil, who becomes his landlord as well as his Scrabble partner, and an alluring Polish beauty with eyes of blue and gold "like a peacocks tail." Through his newspaper work he is exposed to drugs, nightclubs, corruption, murder, gardening, local politics, and a campaign to save the urban fox. And he takes it all in stride. More or less."--BOOK JACKET.