The Private Undoing of a Public Servant

By: Leonie Martell

Narrated by: Roxy Isles, Glenn McReadie

Madame K, age-40 femme fatale and sexual subversive, is an uncompromising deviant. She exacts her pleasures through the disciplinary art of male humiliation, and punishment is not given lightly.

Simon Charlesworth, a 52-year-old cabinet minister, is undergoing a crisis. Party politics, domestic routine, and thoughts of mortality have recently begun to crush his soul, and he is desperately seeking something. He hungers for authentic experience and excitement, but he doesn't yet know what form this might take.

When these two very different personalities meet by chance one evening in a bar in Victoria Station, London, the wheels are set in motion for a descent into sexual excess and an exploration of the human condition at its most primal.

Through a series of humiliating and extreme adventures, Charlesworth achieves the oblivion of erotic ecstasy. But there is something in Madame K's past that is due to return. Something that could cost Charlesworth everything he owns.

©2007 Leonie Martell; (P)2007 Virgin Books Ltd

Difficult Start But Worth The Time.

I really liked this book although it did take a while to really get into it. It wasn’t necessarily slow, but a little heavy going at first. I did give up a couple of times after the first few chapters, but eventually I was able to get over that and began to enjoy it. Excellent lead narration by Roxie Isles, giving depth and life to the various characters, although I could have done without Glen McReadie co-narrating. However when he did, it really felt like the male lead was talking to me. So somewhat difficult to get into, but a worthy read once you get over that hump.