George McCaffrey cannot understand why his long-ago philosophy professor told him to pick another field of study.

John Robert has returned to Ennistone for an entirely different purpose, indeed one that disincentivizes further effort at socially graceful tolerance of George's neuroses.

George is simultaneously a focus of town suspicion, as he was recently involved in a mysterious car crash that may have been an attempt to kill his wife, Stella.

As a part of his purpose, John Robert wishes to arrange the future of his granddaughter Hattie Meynell, without her knowledge, by encouraging Tom McCaffrey, George's younger step brother, to woo Hattie, and then to marry her.

Through a sequence of plot twists, Tom finds himself trapped deep beneath the spa for which Ennistone is famous.