[1] Set in the present day during Michaelmas term at St Oswald's, a grammar school for boys somewhere in the North of England, the book is a psychological thriller about class distinctions, damaged childhood, secrets, identity and revenge.

Increased paperwork, computers, Health & Safety and a new generation of administrators have finally persuaded him that he no longer has a place in the world of education.

A firm believer in the advantages and importance of a classical education, he shuns computers, resorts to Latin to swear and insult his colleagues (which they do not understand), and opposes the idea of any competition between schools other than the kind which is carried out on the playing fields.

Smoking Gauloises in his empty form room is his "one concession to the influence of the Modern Languages", and there is long-standing enmity between Straitley and Dr Devine, the Head of German.

There is Pat Bishop, the Second Master, who has also remained unmarried and who occasionally, at busy times, spends the night in his office doing administrative work.

There is Bob Strange, the Third Master, a bureaucrat unpopular with the pupils who has been trying for years to get rid of Straitley and force him into early retirement ("Young blood is cheaper.").

There are the members of the German department ("Teutons", according to the old Latin master), among them Geoff and Penny ("League of") Nations, a married couple described by Straitley as hypocrites and sycophants.

In particular, a 13-year-old Jewish boy from Straitley's form deplores the alleged theft of his expensive fountain pen, a Bar Mitzvah present.

Soon afterwards, a pupil in Straitley's class nearly dies, following another malicious trick, and closely guarded secrets in the lives of the St Oswald's staff are anonymously revealed.

Flashbacks detail the second narrator's childhood, adolescence and young adulthood, exploring why someone should want to demolish a school's reputation and do harm to members of the staff.

Secondly, the novel gives an insight into the power structure which dominates a large institution of learning, where an individual teacher can never be sure whether a perceived attack on his own well-being has happened out of malice or sheer stupidity, or a combination of both.

Siding with the winners or those in power to prevent such nuisances from happening or to advance one's own career is only one of the many human weaknesses which are on display in a professional environment where teamwork is actually supposed to be a prerequisite.