A debauched young aristocrat entrusts the running of his country house to Tom, the butler, on whom he depends absolutely. Before long the servant begins to dominate his master, to the alarm of the newly hired German nanny who senses sinister, demonic intent in Tom's control of the house.
Mark Omney is a struggling writer, and has a drink problem; his wife Clare is more successful as a journalist. After a dinner-party they host ends badly, they part company the next morning on separate business. Clare becomes ill after an interview assignment, and crashes her car; meanwhile Mark...
A young speech therapist is asked to come to a farm to make a girl speak after several years in silence. A strange family makes out for a strange summer.
' He's wasted his life and yours, Olive, on this sort of idiocy. He could have been a headmaster by now, if he'd stuck to teaching.' Jack Dunn is determined to beat the system with pen and postage stamp.