An amateur entomologist takes over a backwater public house and is trusted with a secret that must go no further.
From the moment pub landlord and keen amateur entomologist, Arnold Matson, arrives in Blinkington-on-the-Treacle to take over his new hostelry, we are led through a colourful collection of vignettes and poignant flashbacks that are both comically funny and disturbingly familiar, as well as a bolt from the blue confession which tests Matson’s resolve and discretion to the limit.
Following the loss of his fiancée several years earlier, Arnold Matson’s mind set can be described as confused and fragile, but as he slowly settles into his new routine in unfamiliar surroundings, the fragility and guarded secrets of other parishioners give him an insight into his own fallibility and unforeseen strength of character.