SWANTON MORLEY, the People’s Professor, has been invited to speak at the Feast Day at All Soul’s School, Rousdon. But a boy goes missing and the teachers at the school come under suspicion – the English teacher, Mr Malloch, a practitioner of Magick; the headmaster, Dr Grew, an enthusiastic amateur scientist and taxidermist; and Miss Glass, the neurotic school nurse, whom Miriam befriends and introduces to the secrets of sexual satisfaction.
Lodging in a remote farmhouse – and with occasional outings to surf and to sample cream teas – Morley, Sefton and Miriam once again pit their wits against the dark, repressive, anti-intellectual forces of 1930s England …