A hostage thriller in which an ambulance plays the role of the wooden horse the Greeks built to fool the Trojans, Seventy-Two Virgins is structurally audacious. This assassination-massacre plan is stumbled on by Roger Barlow, a bicycling Tory MP known for tousled hair, classical allusions and flapping shirt-tails. So what might Seventy-Two Virgins tell us about Johnson at the top? Facebook Twitter Pinterest Bicycling Tory … Boris Johnson, when he was mayor of London. But there are comic riffs on the promise to jihadists of a posthumous reward orgy that gives Seventy-Two Virgins its title, plus references to “Islamic headcases” and “Islamic nutcases”.

Source: The Guardian July 17, 2019 09:00 UTC