It's 1974 and disaster strikes for bookish Edinburgh
lad Luke Mackie when he's whisked away from home
and plonked in the austere (and very odd) Stonehaven
Preparatory School in the Highlands. Shocked by the
casual violence, gang allegiances and unsavoury
liaisons between staff and pupils, the forlorn 12-year-
old struggles to absorb the rules, written and unwritten,
of boarding-school life.

More important are the mysteries he uncovers. What
happened to former pupil Scott and why will no one talk
about him? Why does everyone cower in the presence of
Luke's dorm-mate, Lord Wallace Niven? And why does
the mountain crag called the Top of the World have such
a fearful hold over the boys?

In a school 'bound together by the barbed wire of fear
and violence', Luke's life becomes increasingly entangled
with that of Wallace. Their troubled friendship lies at the
heart of this blackly comic satire. The question is, what
will Luke do about the shocking secrets hidden behind the
forbidding gates of Stonehaven? First, he has to survive,
and to survive, he must become like them...

If The Lord of the Flies, Flashman and If had a menage a
trois, then perhaps James Mitchell's extraordinary and
unexpected debut might be the bastard offspring...
Edgar muses...