The novel is set in the East End of London during the nineteen fifties. It charts the light-hearted progress of the narator, Edwin Scott and his friends through the London Hospital Medical College on their way to becoming doctors. Edwin is slight, fair and naive. He joins the judo society, the ski-club and the badminton society, and attempts the London to Brighton Walk. The mood darkens when the Slasher himself takes up the story, and it becomes clear that a serial killer is loose in Whitechpel, who models his murders on those of Jack the Ripper. The vicarious excitement that sweeps through the medical school turns to fear, as the victims come closer and closer to home, and Edwin realises that the Whitechapel Slasher must be one of his close friends.