Then into her life comes Mae McNulty, the cleaner. With four children by four absent men, not to mention a lady-killing, sharp-dressing father, and irascible grandfather and an illegally enlarged council house, Mae could not be more different from her employer.

Despite their differences, the two women soon form a strong friendship and a complex, hilarious train of events begins, involving mistaken identity, two pounds of Semtex, a transvestite prostitute, the police, four fathers and a health and beauty salon in Bootle called Cleopatra's.

Mrs Murphy Hires a Cleaner is a wonderful, laugh-out-loud comedy set in Liverpool, in the tradition of Tom Sharpe.