Competition No 3917

Set by Margaret Rogers, 6 February

You were asked to send in a synopsis of a novel that would appeal to as broad a readership as possible.

Report by Ms de Meaner

First, many apologies to Ian Birchall who has e-mailed me about the appearance of his name, instead of my own, as the author of the weekly report to comp 3915.

I hasten to reassure everyone that he did not judge that comp (or, even more reassuringly, win it). The mind works in mysterious ways, indeed. £20 to the winners, the best of whom (Shirley Curran) also gets the Tesco vouchers.

The saga of a Tennessee mining family where Wilbur, trapped underground by rising water, is terrified of perishing without declaring his enduring love for Ivana, runaway Russian nun-turned-fashion-model. While rescuers sailing from England struggle to survive the sinking of the Titanic, faithful Lassie sets out to cross the continent and save her master, accompanied by little furry friends Cat and Rabbit, and outsmarting the deadly Space Robot Wolf. During a gripping mercy dash to the disaster scene, medics perform emergency heart surgery on the corrupt mine owner, who movingly decides to donate his illicit fortune, amassed by exploiting orphans, to finance cookery classes for down-and-outs. In a dazzling denouement, Sherlock Holmes reveals the secret of Ivana's aristocratic birth. A time-travelling trainee wizard, the hero's long-lost younger brother, casts a "water-go-back" spell and saves the day. The lovers are movingly reunited with an idyllic finale and traditional Jewish wedding.

Appendices list mining tools, Titanic treasures and major pedigree dog clubs.

Shirley Curran

Simon and Simone are incestuous twins, marooned on the planet Bzusskr. How they find themselves there is a story in itself. Mummy and Daddy lost them on a beach in Dorset two years ago. Mummy is French and they had gone to the seaside because the sudden scent of a madeleine (a sort of biscuit, easy to make from the delicious recipe printed here in full) inflamed her enough to try to relive past holidays in Normandy.

As she lies on the sand, painstakingly teaching her smaller children to read from Charlie Buskins Learns his AaBb and 123s, she hears a shot. She pulls a pink cashmere pashmina around her magnificent bosom, but not before a violent hand hurls her down. She screams for her husband, a leading expert in cosmological string theory and dark matter, who is loading his laptop (crucially possessing 52,800 gigabytes of soft memory and a 10,268 RAM regurgitation module) for a major international experiment. In his rush to save his beloved Alycia he presses a wrong key - and the twins are expelled into space.

Will Daddy get them back?

Barrie Heads

Garry Nutter, boy wizard, turns detective to foil an Opus Dei conspiracy. He flies to Africa in Birdie, the little green helicopter, with his lover Chantelle, a heroin addict from the Glasgow slums, leaving behind scatter-brained Bridget, who longs to marry him - or anyone. Garry survives in Somalia on ten dollars a day and takes 26 pictures of animals, each beginning with a different letter. On his return he gets an undercover job as cook in the glamorous Beckham household, producing 60 fat-losing recipes. Investigating the mysterious Michelangelo Code, he learns to solve sudokus with 50 examples. Studying the full revised text of the Highway Code, he realises truth lies in the past, using a time-travel machine to go to the 1940s, the world of Issy Bonn and Geraldo, then to Jane Austen's country estate. A programming mistake - caused by an outdated Windows handbook - means Garry arrives in New York on 11 September 2001. In a morally ambiguous conclusion he defeats the plotters and, after a lascivious sex-romp, marries faithful Bridget and lives happily ever after.

Ian Birchall

No 3920 Set by John O'Byrne

We want an over-the-top restaurant review literally (and metaphorically) gushing with infectious enthusiasm (eg, "noodles vibrating like a Mozart concerto"). Jilly Goolden for foodies.

Max 175 words by 9 March. E-mail: comp@newstatesman.co.uk

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