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Number Of Editions

Re-printed at least 6 times. The Kindle eBook and new Paperback edition were issued in September 2023.

MARKS OUT OF 10 FOR THE COVER

Again - Russ is looking sheepish - this time clutching a briefcase, while a semi-naked brunette kneels at his feet and feels the cut of his suit. He's literally fighting them off..and he doesn't know why! Two versions of the cover exist - only slightly different in layout / colour. 9/10 The new 2023 edition features a fresh new design for the Tobin books.

COVER NOTES

PAPERBACK EDITION 1

Hi, remember me? Ex-sewing-machine salesman Russ Tobin, now working for Karefree Kredit Inkorporated - collecting debts. Rum crowd, debtors. Take Joanne, twenty-nine, widowed two years - a lively little sparkler who pays her debt ten times over and how! Then I have to go and tumble down a flight of stairs, land up in hospital and lose my job. Anyway, I meet this great guy, The King Of The Swingers - Tony Dane - in commercials - invites me down to London. Pack my bags, have a last bash at my landlady's desirable daughter and off to the Smoke. What a place! Land up with a crowd of scrumptious strippers and LIFE starts all over again. Then I get into commercials myself...birds, birds and more birds...Where will it all end? You haven't heard the end of lusty Russ Tobin, the most willing Don Juan ever to scorch his way across the pages of a novel - not by a long chalk

PAPERBACK EDITION 2

It's amazing how these women pay their dues! Russ Tobin's got a new job - collecting debts for Karefree Kredit Inkorporated. He's the man who can get Joanne (29, widowed two years) to pay her debt ten times over - and how! Then he meets Tony Dane, the king of the swingers, and becomes just a face in the crowd - a crowd of strippers, that is. Where will it all end? It won't, not by a long chalk!

2023 KINDLE EDITION

It's 1970 and Russ Tobin's got a new job - collecting debts for Karefree Kredit Inkorporated. It's a step-up (or possibly a step-down) from his previous job selling sewing machines on 'the switch', but he's willing to turn his hand to anything. Taking to his new role like a duck to water, he soon finds that he's got an uncanny knack of convincing the girls to pay their debts and much, much more! Then by a twist of fate, he meets Tony Dane, the star of TV advertising who introduces him the swinging London scene at the start of the 1970s, and suddenly Russ's life is on a trajectory undreamed of!

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE PLOT

Having been sacked from Ritebuy (or technically I suppose he quit so they couldn't sack him) at the end of The Sewing Machine Man - Russ already hinted that he had another job lined up as a Supernumeracy Finance Account Control Supervisor - A Debt Collector in other words. The book starts 4 weeks into his new job and by Page 86 he is no longer a Debt Collector - so the title is a slight misnomer. Unusually - each Chapter has a title eg. "Max and Another Pussy", "A Farewell To Legs" etc and the book is split into two halves - "Tobin Down North" and "Tobin Up South". Russ nearly breaks his leg and ends up meeting Tony Dane in hospital. Tony convinces Russ that he could have a lucrative career in London acting in commercials. Russ grasps the nettle and off he goes - leaving Liverpool for the capital, where things start to happen...ending with a prolonged set piece in Portimao, Portugal where Russ is filming a commercial. (NB it was only many years later when Stan recounted the story behind his ill-fated (and unreleased) movie 'The Sleepwalkers' that I realised the whole of this section is almost entirely based in truth. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent!) I should also add that in amongst all this, Stan chose to insert another scene setting Russ down amongst the gay community, which seemed to serve very little purpose other than to allow Russ to express quite how much he very definitely was NOT GAY. The characterisation was as cliched as you'd expect for a book written in 1970 but at least Russ described the experience as "edifying".

PAGE AT WHICH RUSS TOBIN FIRST TELLS US ABOUT A LADY HE ADMIRES

Page 11. Russ describes Jean again - this time he tells us she is 18 (so he must have been working at Ritebuy at least a year!) and makes some (purely scientific, I'm sure) observations around her anatomical developments.

PAGE AT WHICH RUSS TOBIN FIRST BECOMES INTIMATE WITH A LADY

Page 45. 3 whole pages earlier than his first romantic entanglement in The Sewing Machine Man! Joanne Burgess is the 29 yr old debt-ridden widow who gives Russ some horizontal comfort. They're still at it on Page 52 and beyond!

PAGE AT WHICH RUSS TOBIN FIRST DRINKS A VODKA TONIC

Russ chooses a Whisky at first on Page 43, but whilst in hospital on Page 68 he cheekily asks the nurse for a Vodka. It is on Page 120 that Tony Dane first orders them both a Vodka Tonic. It quickly becomes Russ's TOP TIPPLE.

PAGE AT WHICH RUSS TOBIN FIRST REMINISCES ABOUT A PREVIOUS ADVENTURE

As mentioned, Russ re-introduces Jean on Page 11 - he also explains most of the plot of The Sewing Machine Man to Joanne before they move on to more pressing matters.

SERIOUS POINTS RAISED

That Debt-Collecting is a tough job for someone who has a heart of gold and an eye for the ladies. And also that when an opportunity arises - you should take it and worry about the consequences later. Life is what you make it and it is a fool who chooses to stand still when there is a whole world to be discovered.

RATING ON THE MORGANOMETER

Another magical 10 for Stanley's follow-up.Tobin is still true to his working class roots and the women are falling for him thick and fast. We particularly like the songs he tries to write for Ken Dodd early on in the book - and of course Russ ends the novel with, what is to become his trademark farewell - "TARRA!"