Seventy-Two Virgins Boris Johnson HarperCollins, 336pp, £17.99 ISBN 0007195907

It's very hard to dislike Boris Johnson. My parliamentary "shadow" as arts minister attracts remarkable affec- tion from members of the public, by no means all of them Tories. Type his name into Google and your computer will be flooded with more than 24,000 results, including an online petition calling for him to be named prime minister. Judging by the photograph that adorns the site's home page - Boris in full yawn - the campaign is unlikely to ruffle any feathers at Conservative Central Office.

He is also a clever political columnist, with a light touch and a knack for counter-intuitive pieces. So who better to try his hand at a topical comic thriller? And where better to set it than in the Palace of Westminster, on the occasion of a state visit?

Johnson's Westminster and its inhabitants are certainly familiar. No names are mentioned, but you don't need to be a political journalist to recognise the players in this drama. Essentially, the story turns on a series of misunderstandings, blunders and sheer bad luck, allowing a terrorist group to get into Westminster Hall as the US president addresses both Houses to celebrate the Anglo-American alliance. I am giving nothing away if I reveal that a mass hostage situation ensues and, somewhat improbably, there follows a sort of worldwide televised debate, in which hostages argue for and against the legality of the US prison camp at Guantanamo Bay.

The timing of the book's publication is inadvertently perfect. My copy arrived on the very day when protesters burst in to the Commons Chamber, bringing proceedings to a halt. There is even a typically unlucky "author's note" at the end, with Johnson declaring that the "only implausibility" in the novel is the idea that protesters "could for a moment elude the police who guard the Palace of Westminster with such vigilance". Ouch.

In the event, however, the book is neither as much fun nor as clever as I had hoped. I have no problem with a work of light fiction dealing with sensitive issues, but a novel does have to engage the reader, either with characters and events that they can care about, or with a story that grips them by the throat - and preferably both.

This one bristles with potentially interesting characters: the bumbling, bicycling MP whose disorganisation allows the terrorists to get passes to the Commons; the terrorists themselves; even the US president. However, they are never quite polished to the point where we actually care what happens to them. Other characters - for example, the undercover Guardian hack who helps shape the destiny of one of the terrorists - drift in and out of the tale without it being clear why they are there.

It is as if Johnson had set out to cross Frederick Forsyth's plotting with black humour and topical satire. Most of the time, he falls a fraction short of achieving all three, and we end up with something that rattles along all right, but never quite becomes unput-downable.

Yet there is no denying the author's way with words and depth of historical knowledge. The book includes some genuinely interesting and informative descriptions of the Palace of Westminster - the passage on the hammer-beam ceiling in Westminster Hall is particularly effective. And Johnson does have a journalist's talent for painting vivid pictures, seemingly with minimum effort. If the overlong passage towards the end - where the arguments for and against America and globalisation are paraded - slows down the book, there is no doubt that both cases are powerfully and persuasively drawn.

Johnson certainly has at least one comic novel in him. I am just not sure this is it.

Estelle Morris is minister for the arts

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