A school reunion goes horribly wrong... A superb classic crime novel from a master of the genre. 'Compton has been one of Britain's most original and consistent novelists since the late Sixties, but he has never received the attention he deserves...Compton's prose is fine-tuned, his human insights sharp, and his narrative pace filled with the weird synchronicities and dissonances of how violent things usually happen' INDEPENDENT Hating his brother and bitter not having attended a private school, Boyce is planning to impersonate his brother at the school's centenary celebration. Unfortunately, Boyce did not know his brother's best friend, Ben Anderson, and mystery writer and would-be detective, is also going to the event. And after Anderson arrives for the celebration, two deaths occur at the school...

Paul Menns's quiet life is shattered when he reads the local paper and discovers his picture on the front page as a murder suspect. He discovers further that the dead man's name is his own. Accused of killing a man with a description matching his own, he calls a private investigator, Lacey Summers, to help solve the mystery. However, he did not reckon on falling in love with the lovely PI.