When there are high crimes to be covered up, mysteries to be wrapped in enigmas, or a murderer to be liquidated - literally - there is only one man in England who can be trusted with the task: Felix Culpepper, tutor in Classics at St Wygefortis' College, Cambridge, and assassin-at-large for the British Establishment.

From the eerie deserts of New Mexico to the high-rolling hotels of the Adriatic, Culpepper moves with consummate ease and an unexpected penchant for guns, drugs and esoteric methods of murder - all to save himself from the drudgery of cramming Latin into the privileged yet empty skulls of the dregs of Britain's aristocracy. With an intellectual vanity that rivals Holmes, more self-esteem than Bond and a blood-steeped amorality that out-Ripleys Hannibal Lecter, Culpepper is the ideal hero for our debased days. And only in his student, sidekick (and pending Nemesis) Margot ffontaines-Laigh, does he meet his match.