Bob Mortimer's new book to be called The Long Shoe

'About a bloke who's wife leaves him, but maybe she's been taken'

Bob Mortimer has revealed that his second novel will be a mystery, provisionally titled The Long Shoe.

The comic told The One Show last night that he only had 20 pages left to write on the follow-up to his debut, The Satsuma Complex.

He said the new book was ‘about a bloke who's wife leaves him, but maybe she's been taken, he's got to find out. On the way he utilises a very long shoe to solve the mystery. It's a great book.’

Incredulous fellow guest Greg Davies asked: ‘Have you written it Bob? It sounds like you're making it up’, to which Mortimer replied: ‘Honestly!’

Mortimer had previously told Kathy Burke that the new book would not feature Gary Thorn, the frustrated legal assistant at the heart of his first book, who was loosely based on his early life.

Speaking on Burke’s Where There's A Will, There's A Wake podcast he said: ‘I thought if I did the same character, I'll just write the same book, so I thought, you know, go do something different.’

He last month revealed that the first book was being retitled The Clementine Complex for the American market, where it is being released on Tuesday. Satusmas tend to be called satsuma tangerines in the US, where they are less common than in the UK.

No publication date has yet been announced for The Long Shoe, which will be released by Simon & Schuster.

The Satsuma Complex came out last year following the success of his memoirs, And Away…

Mortimer was onThe One Show with Paul Whitehouse to talk about the return of Gone Fishing to BBC Two on Sunday. The pair said that during the filming of the the sixth series they saw a ghost in Dumfries, setting up motion detectors to try to capture it.

Gone Fishing returns Sunday 3rd September. The memory ofTed's birthday party in ep1 will haunt Whitehouse forever. pic.twitter.com/5qXojxUs1S
— Bob Mortimer (@RealBobMortimer) August 25, 2023