Ben Messing, a professor in the English department at Oakham College, has been murdered. Every one of his colleagues is a suspect. But whodunit? This novel charts the intrigues of the faculty members of the English department at Oakham College as they attempt to solve the murder mystery, as they entangle themselves in a complex, convoluted series of (mis)adventures, where the solution to the mystery could result in yet another murder. Either a satirical farce or a farcical satire, this send up of the English department is part murder mystery, part literary novel, part lampoon, part scholarly criticism, part academic exercise ... but entirely amusing.