When mark is sent to St Matthew's college for boys, it is one more punishment for years of bad behaviour, the school, run with an iron fist by the sinister headmaster Mr Crabtree, has a reputation for knocking boys like him into shape, as soon as he arrives, mark enters a nightmarish world of questions: what is Mr Crabtree's secret, and why does he have a miserable sixteen-year-old secretary? Are his new friends who they say they are? With these friends, Trent, Vlad and Francis, Mark sets out to find answers, together, they are the goblet club. Dedicated to the study of poisons, they begin to use their potions to rid the school of a plague of rats. But as mark is drawn deeper into the intrigue, their thoughts turn to murder...
A boarding-school tale that shivers with wit and imagination. S. A Partridge's winning debut fills the dormitories of the mind with the darkest mysterjes, and the guiltiest of pleasures.