Description

Peregrine Roderick Clyde-Brown is a bumbling, naive and savagely dim-witted teenager, who, as his name reveals, cannot possibly be exposed to the evils of a comprehensive school. However, with his penchant for taking even the most innocent command literally, no reputable school will accept the boy who, when told that he must turn over a new leaf, begins fondling the foliage.

His parents, with high hopes and a considerable amount of bribery money, search for anywhere that will take their ‘late developer.’ In a school that time forgot, Peregrine’s ‘talents’ for taking orders and having no discernible individual thought seem perfect for a promising career in the upper ranks of the British Army. It is at Groxbourne that Peregrine meets Mr Gladstone, a man whose teaching style extends as far as using lashings to teach arithmetic. After Gladstone whisks the unquestioning boy off on a hysterical mystery, Peregrine ends up storming a French castle, where he unwaveringly commits mischief, mayhem and even murder!

Publisher Review

When Tom Sharpe turns his attention to a very minor public school- the result is predictably savage. Hoaxes, chases, car crashes, shootings, and general mayhem. Wicked riotous humour * Daily Telegraph * Wildly hilarious pot-shots at the public school system and the sacred cows of adventure fiction * Observer * You'll enjoy this wild and, in places, wildly funny story- It is all an hilarious send-up of the Dornford Yates style of thriller with some modernistic Sharpe barbs added * Daily Express * One of our best contemporary comic writers- very, very funny * Birmingham Evening Mail * Excellently funny -- Auberon Waugh * Daily Mail *