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Content snapshot
Flag an inaccuracy →What's in this book, at a glance — five things readers want to know before they start.
Violence
Barely any
A murder occurs; the circumstances are revealed gradually
Language
Barely any
Mild profanity
Sexual Content
Some
A seduction and sexual relationship depicted; a professor's attraction to a student handled with some explicitness
Substance Use
Barely any
Academic social drinking
Emotional Intensity
Some
Academic rivalry, obsession with manuscripts, and questions about the nature of scholarship and wisdom
What this book is about
At the College of St. John and the Holy Ghost — Spook — in a fictional Toronto university, graduate student Maria Theotoky and elderly don Simon Darcourt investigate the estate of the late millionaire Francis Cornish, while a charismatic professor pursues the stolen Rabelais manuscripts and a student plots murder. Davies's first Cornish Trilogy novel mixes scholarship, sexuality, and dark comedy in a portrait of academic life as the last preserve of Renaissance humanism.
Notes for sensitive readers
Reader-flagged moments and themes that may affect your experience.
Professor-student sexual relationship
Murder plot
Reader Verification
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