Robert Amiss

The outrageous and irrepressible Baroness (Ida 'Jack') Troutbeck, Mistress of St Martha's, has another cultural battle to win against the British Establishment: this time, against the horror of modern art, as demonstrated by the likes of Tracey Emin and Damien Hirst. But shortly after she enthusiastically announces this war to her close friends, Baroness Troutbeck is kidnapped. Panic spreads throughout the London art world when they realise nine more victims are missing,

Sir Henry Fortune, celebrity curator, has vanished. So too has his partner in love and money, disreputable art dealer Jason Pringle. Panic spreads throughout the London art world when more people go missing. No one can locate Anastasia Holliday, sensational Abject artist; Jake Thorogood, the critic who catapulted her into stardom; or Dr. Hortense Wilde, notorious for having influenced generations of art students to despise craftsmanship. Hysteria hits the media when it is found that the common link between the victims is that their careers blossomed when they embraced newly fashionable conceptual art.