The English Assassin is the third of Michael Moorcock's Jerry Cornelius novels. It looks through a many-sided lens at English assumptions about themselves, about class, and about the Empire over the past seventy years. It includes all the familiar characters from previous Cornelius novels (Miss Brunner, Bishop Beesley, Frank Cornelius, etc) and introduces us to a host of colourful new ones (especially Jerry's unforgettable mother). The philosophical and moral themes of the book touch on a profusion of problems - violent revolution, the responsibilities of colonialism, racialism, sex and superstition - while the novel as a whole is always highly readable and entertaining.