Twenty-two-year-old Horace Littlefair travels from the village of Great Much to the big city-London town-if not to make it rich, then at least to make a living working for his great uncle at the local newspaper. Unprepared, underpaid, and overdressed, he is plunged instead into the discombobulating world of love, racism, rabies, blackmail, political intrigue . . . and Scrabble. Horace is out of step with the rest of the world, threatened by impending disaster wherever he turns. But he is helped along by several unlikely and unusual friendships. And so Horace stumbles to adapt, to love, to produce good copy, and to get the scoop behind Barnaby Colefax's campaign to save the urban fox.