In Muriel Spark's fantastic first novel, the only things that aren't ambiguous a
re her matchless originality and glittering wit. Caroline Rose is plagued by the
tapping of typewriter keys and the strange, detached narration of her every tho
ught and action. She has an unusual problem - she realises she is in a novel.
Her fellow characters are also possibly deluded: Laurence, her former lover, fi
nds diamonds in a loaf of bread - could his elderly grandmother really be a smug
gler? And Baron Stock, her bookseller friend, believes he is on the trail of Eng
land's leading Satanist.
