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When Parker loses his faith and drops out of the seminary, he finds himself back in London and looking for work. Unable to find anything more respectable, he accepts an offer to work as amanuensis to a man of dubious character called Robinson. Robinson lives in a big house in Kilburn where he earns a living as a collector of historical objects. He specialises in Russian Icons, old newspapers and other items of more dubious provenance. One of Parker’s duties involves meeting up with people who have an interest in purchasing the kinds of artefacts in which Robinson specializes. While carrying out his assignments, he comes to realise that his grandfather and Robinson’s father both have controversial war records. In fact, the more immersed he becomes in Robinson’s world in fact, the more he comes to realise that he is the inheritor of a personal history that leads into the darkest corners of 20th Century history. With a cast of corrupt police officers, the Russian Mafiosi, Catholic priests, Second World War bomber pilots, David Bowie, Eric Burdon from The Animals, Eva Braun, Heinrich Himmler and Adolf Hitler, Come in and Shut the Door is an bold, brave and scatological masterpiece by one of our best and most original writers.
