'These stories are refreshingly, unapologetically erudite... They are also extremely funny' - Stephanie Merritt, Observer These four novellas are narrated by a brilliantly distinctive voice telling the stories of an Anglo-Italian Professor of Semiotics undone by his own cleverness; an Irish woman who joins a Tibetan nunnery in India; the old university friends whose party is galvanised by a pugnacious newcomer into a demented Buchanesque mission to restore their hostess's lost humour; and an international lawyer who takes to terrorism in pursuit of a theory. Several Deceptions is clever, funny and a little cruel and introduces a writer of quite remarkable gifts.