Bill James is on top form in this sharply satirical black comedy set behind the scenes at a museumGeorge Lepage the new Director of the Hulliborn Regional Museum and Gallery has great hopes that his tenure in the post will be short and profitable He has visions of early retirement and perhaps x like his predecessor and his predecessorxs predecessor x a knighthoodBut circumstances do their best to snatch his happy dreams away from him First a deranged former staff member causes a riot in the Folk Department and then three recently purchased ruinously expensive paintings of dubious authenticity are stolen putting the museumxs security x and judgement x into question The fate of the upcoming Japanese Ancient Surgical Skills exhibition and its astonishing collection of tonsil excision implements hangs dangerously in the balanceAnd over everything hangs the grim specter of the former Director xCFlouncexD Butler-Minton whose body may be most definitely dead but whose legacy lives on And with every day that passes the rumours of what Flounce did behind the Iron Curtain x and how the haversack straps the whippet and the legendary Mrs Cray were involved x grow threatening to erupt into a scandal that may cost the museum and Lepage himself everything.
