Set in and around Cambridge, The Bursar’s Wife introduces George Kocharyan, one time policeman and now a private detective. Amidst the usual jobs following unfaithful wives and husbands (including a woman he’s just photographed engaged in ‘callisthenics’ in a parked car), he is approached by the glamorous Sylvia Booker. Booker is the wife of the bursar of Morley College, and is worried that her daughter Lucy is in with the wrong crowd at Emmanuel.

Aided by his assistant Sandra and her teenage son, George soon realises that Lucy is sneaking off to the apartment of an older man, but perhaps not for the reasons one might suspect. At the same time, the unfaithful wife he had been following is found dead in her car, and Sylvia Booker’s husband commits suicide. As his investigation continues—enlivened by a mild stabbing and the unwanted intervention and attention of female police detective DI Stubbing—George begins to wonder if all the threads are connected…