Hot Water - P.G. Wodehouse

Ex-flames, murder, blackmail, break-ins, imposters… you might associate the adjectives better with a Sidney Sheldon novel. But when you mix all that with light hearted humour, you know it could only be Wodehouse.
Hot Water is an exceptional novel amongst all Wodehouse novels. Firstly, it’s more international than a normal Wodehouse novel which centers either in England or U.S.A. This one has France as the land of the crimes.
So there is a Wellington Gedge, an oppressed husband of a domineering wife who insists on him becoming an Ambassador of America to France. And with a phobia of all that is genteel and diplomatic, Mr. Gedge’s pining for his homeland America increases all the more. He breathes with relief as he finds out that his wife is planning to travel to England, which would give him the opportunity to participate in the merriment of the local carnival. And he is determined to do so despite being saddled with uncharitable guests like anti-alcohol senator Opal and his daughter Jane Opal, along with the proprietor of his rented Chateau Blissac, (his home for the non-French speaking audiences) Vicomte De Blissac.
A Packy Franklyn, the millionaire American football star, engaged to a Lady Beatrice Bracken, a sublime but scathing beauty, both get dragged into the plot when Lady Bracken asks his beau to befriend an intellectual novelist and a part time sound impressionist, Blair Eggleston, who in turn, is engaged to Jane Opal, the daughter of Senator Opal. Packy Franklyn finds himself increasingly drawn to Jane Opal, ever since he takes up the assignment of cutting Senator Opal’s hair. And as an additional favour to her, he agrees to withdraw a damning letter from the safe of Mrs. Gedge, who is using it as a device to blackmail the Senator into granting ambassadorship to her husband. And since Vicomte De Blissac is a friend of Packy, the footballer manages to get an admission when apparently Mr. Gedge murders the Vicomte.
That’s just the tip of the confusion, really. See, the problem is that Senator Opal thinks that his daughter is really engaged to Packy, and ends up hiring Eggleston as his valet. And then there are other people like a safe blower and a stick-up man and a con-man, Soup Slattery and Oily Carlisle, with their own twisted and sad love stories, who are after some jewels in the safe. Add a cook and her lover, a menacing secretary who could potentially be a detective, a butler who pronounces ‘Madam’ as ‘Modom’, and Lady Bracken and a boat, it certainly is an eventful book. And boundlessly funny I might add. You really ought to read up to find out who gets to the safe and which guy ends up with which girl. It’s a guaranteed stress buster.