Michael Caine’s novel will most likely be rubbish, but I’m glad he’s found his happy ending | Xan Brooks

Most actors make terrible novelists - but writing the cracking thriller' Deadly Game was life-affirming for the veteran star, so never mind the finished product

God spare us another millionaire actor who fancies themself as a bestselling author -unless the actor is Michael Caine, in which case good on him, raise your glass. The 90-year mainstay of British cinema spent lockdown writing his first novel, tapping away at his iPad every day, toiling to master the intricacies of the craft. Paragraphs," he said. Punctuation, all that." The book might be awful. It won't trouble the Man Booker panel. But in finally completing the thing, Caine has indirectly written himself a happy ending of sorts - the most knackered and lovely writer's cliche of them all.

According to Caine's publishers, Deadly Game is a cracking thriller with a real voice and a super twist", although quite frankly, what else would they say? Specifically, it's about a London DCI, Harry Taylor, who's on the trail of a stash of uranium. Potential suspects include a posh art dealer called Julian Smythe, and a dodgy oligarch, Vladimir Voldrev. Also in the mix: a couple of neo-Nazis, a Colombian drug cartel (possibly several, going from the press release) and a pair of cockney refuse collectors. Caine says he got the basic idea from a newspaper story he once read about two East End blokes who found uranium on the rubbish tip. Everything else (the Nazis, the Colombians, dodgy Vladimir) is 100% uncut Michael Caine.