Although the beginning of the new term at Oakland School in Stansfield, England, seems much as usual, it isn't. Handsome physical education instructor Colin Cochrane has just received yet ather steamy anymous letter. His wife is t amused. And a good-looking new English teacher, Patrick Murray, has joined the staff, fresh from a bit of trouble at his last school. Between them, Patrick and Colin provide abundant inspiration for adolescent sexual fantasies - which unfortunately become a twisted, tragic reality when fifteen-year-old Natalie Ouspensky is strangled, having first been (possibly) raped as well. Although Detective Inspector Judy Hill and Detective Chief Inspector Lloyd are certain that Natalie's killer is someone from Oakland School, they have their work cut out making certain just who. For Natalie wasn't quite the incent her mother believes, and her classmates guard Natalie's secrets - and their own - like life itself. It would be so easy for Hill and Lloyd to make an arrest, and so likely that they'd be wrong. For once, the odds are that a killer will slip right through their fingers, until a shred of evidence points them in the right direction...