The second book in the Dalziel and Pascoe series sends the two mismatched Yorkshire policemen among university students, a group for which Andy Dalziel has no great love.

In fact, when he hears a dead body has been found on the grounds of Holm Coultram College, he thinks of it as rather a good start.

This is 1971, and the police force does not enjoy the warmest of relations with the Ivory Tower. Nevertheless, Dalziel takes himself to college, where the single corpse is followed by another and then another, until even Dalziel is forced to admit that someone is going after the academic community with rather excessive zeal.