Conduct Unbecoming by Mike Seabrook (Gay Modern Classics) [PRE-ORDER - SHIPS MARCH 27, 2026]

'The young man saw all that he was intended to see, and his response was everything the amateur scriptwriter watching the scene gleefully from behind the mirror could have hoped.'

London in 1990. Public bathrooms are monitored by a police unit known as the 'importuning squad'—police officers who sit behind two-way glass, or in filthy toilet stalls, surveilling the bathrooms for signs of illicit sexual activity and waiting to arrest unsuspecting gay men caught 'cottaging'. With a reputation for cruelty, entrapment, and abuse of power—not to mention the long hours spent in public bathrooms—it's a job nobody wants to do.

When 23-year-old Bob Chambers is assigned to the squad, he dismisses the rumours and gets on with the job. How bad can it really be? But as arrest quotas pile up, he quickly comes face to face with the importuning squad's worst excesses—young and handsome, Bob is soon pushed into acting as an agent provocateur for his overzealous partner, seducing men in order to arrest them. 

Faced with homophobia, corruption, and unexpected discoveries about his own sexuality, Bob's shortcut to success becomes a journey of discovery, and his conflicted loyalties lead to clashes with his friends, London's gay community, and, eventually, the police force itself. 

A former policeman, Mike Seabrook's seminal novel is both a highly-charged story of intrigue and an insider's damning exposé of one of British policing's most shameful eras. More than just a good story, Conduct Unbecoming is a vitally important social document chronicling an oft-ignored part of British queer history.  

Back in print for the first time since 1992, Solar Press are proud to present a new edition of this classic work to a new generation of readers.