Benjamin Cann has walked free from the Old Bailey, cleared of murdering his mistress. Except for the fact that he did – well, it might have been an accident, but then again, it might not have been. But a non-convicted murderer will have trouble settling into society, and that is where the Asterisk Club comes in, a group of murderers, mostly unrepentant, who have evaded justice and now look out for each other.

He is given lodging in a rat-infested boarding house next door inhabited by two artistic couples, but soon, to the alarm of both households, Cann turns up dead. As both households strive to get rid of the body without attracting the police’s attention, a second body appears, and hijinks ensue. Apparently…

Humour is a funny thing. If you don’t live in the UK, for example, you may not be aware of Mrs Brown’s Boys. Enough people love this show, which I would try to describe but would not come close to revealing the horror of it, that it gets a prime-time slot on Saturday night TV. However, to me, it’s as funny as having my eyeballs sandpapered while woodpeckers perforate my ear drums. Likewise I’m sure that things I find hilarious leave others baffled.

Farce, in particular, is a tricky beast. If you use the word here, the first thing you think of is theatrical comedies involving trouserless vicars hiding in wardrobes. It can work well – the prime example of out-and-out farce that I recall enjoying was Steven Moffatt’s sitcom, Joking Apart, but it’s used to an extent in a lot of sitcoms.  And, as you might expect, it’s the leading form of the comedy here.

Lot’s of people assuming the other person is a murderer, hilarious escapades while they try and dispose of the body, “hilarious” accents, kicking, punching and spitting on cats and dogs, ah, the fun never starts.

Actually, that’s not quite fair, there are a couple of bits that made me smile – notably the problem faced when they try to chuck the body in the river – but generally, this wasn’t my cup of tea.

What I did like was the eventual revelation of the (fairly obvious) murderer and their motive. The one-person-show that the villain puts on to explain everything is quite fun (if deeply weird) but a pretty decent idea is lost as even though the villain’s identity is unknown, it’s hard to call this a whodunnit given that for most of the book, no one seems particularly bothered with finding out who did the deed.

Ah, the curse of Book Club… still, it’s The Burning Court next month. That can’t go wrong. Can it?

The Wooden Overcoat is available as an ebook in the UK from the Murder Room, in case I haven’t put you off…