Town and Gown

How can probationary lecturer Eric Farnham secure his future at a time of pending university cuts? It seems by grasping the chance to win extra funding for his institution through cultivating hard nosed local businessman Terry Varne and his daughter. In doing so he comes into close contact with Varne's ambitous, self-taught employee, Albert Birkit - a pairing that draws Eric into a punishing series of escapades and gives him a crash course in the shadier side of the city's enterprise. Albert, by contrast, takes to Eric's world like a duck to water. Just as Eric admits defeat in the face of the amorality shared by town and gown, Albert shows him that the exception proves the rule.