Fleur Talbot is writing a novel but she also works as secretary to Sir Quentin Oliver. Part of her job includes editing the memoirs of the 10 members of the Autobiographical Association. These two projects begin to overlap when Fleur notices that the members of the association closely resemble the characters in her novel. The dangerously manipulative Sir Oliver, believing Fleur's novel to be a roman ` clef that tells too much about the association, steals the manuscript; Fleur retaliates by stealing the memoirs, only to find that Sir Quentin has plagiarized from her work. Muriel Spark's novel is in some ways a mystery that asks not merely "Who dunnit?" but also "What is reality? What is truth?" And like several of her books, it is a devilishly clever look at the actual process of writing fiction.

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