In a Victorian mansion hotel on a Scottish island, a group of English Literature lecturers and students from Glasgow gather for a study weekend, though studying is not exactly what some of them have in mind. And the weekend does prove to be a major turning point in the emotional lives of several people - just not quite in the way any of them expected. As entertaining as it is thought-provoking, William McIlvanney's novel brilliantly illustrates the essential conundrum of human nature - that we are driven by animal instincts, but have the mental capacity to analyse, harness and rue them. Which also means we continue to dream, even when our dreams fail us.