Believing that the country is going to the dogs, particularly in relation to the misuse of the Queen's English by the media, retired businessman Alan Corbett is not prepared to sit back and take it any more, and embarks on an obsessive one-man mission to save the English language – by fair means or foul. Drawing on his Territorial Army experience, Corbett focuses his increasingly sinister direct-action campaign on the twenty worst offenders. With very few clues and many erroneous deductions, Chief Superintendent Rayner and his team seem to be trying to find a needle in a haystack in tracking down their man. As the net gradually closes in, a nail-biting battle of wits ensues. How can Rayner outwit his wily opponent and obtain enough evidence for a conviction? And will all Corbett's efforts to reverse the decline of the English language ultimately succeed?