"It's a tale as old as time..."
Boy meets girl in an internet chat room. Girl falls for boy. Boy falls for girl. Girl disappears without trace. Then boy discovers that girl lives in California, makes X-rated movies for a living and has a tumour the size of a walnut on her left buttock - a life-threatening melanoma she knows nothing about.
'Cheek' is the story of Dr Byron Wesley, the medical profession's most unpromising hero, and his journey across continents to track down a girl he's only ever met online. It's an epic odyssey that will take him from leafy Putney to the seedy underbelly of the Californian porn industry and back again - accompanied by best friend Jeremy, a man with the libido of a rutting rhino and the intellect to match.
En route, the two friends lock horns with some of pornography's least savoury personnel, upsetting the law enforcement communities on both sides of the Atlantic and almost - almost - losing the respect of the highly influential Putney & District Mothers' Union.
Dr Byron "does" track down elusive porn star, Nikki, of course - having ridden roughshod over his Hippocratic oath and the credit limit on his wife's Barclaycard - but she's hardly the model patient he'd hoped for. And when the only solution to her problems (and those of her worryingly fetching sister) seems to involve carting everyone back home to London, things look certain to go from bad to worse.
Cheek, by 'Single To Morden' author Spike Evans, is a dark and original comic tale that wrestles with the ultimate question of medical ethics - how far should you go to save a life?