Set against the Japanese advance on India during the Second World War, 'The Skinning Tree' centres on the nine-year-old Sabby, who lives in a Calcutta family where sophisticated British habits such as bridge and dinner parties co-exist with Indian values and nationalism. When he is sent to a boarding school in northern India, that world is soon forgotten as he's subjected with his fellow pupils to the teachers' draconian regime. The boys themselves take on their educators' cruel traits, mindlessly killing animals and hanging their skins on a cactus, before their thoughts turn to even more sisnister schemes. Conspirational whisperings and plans of revenge spiral into a tragedy engulfing Sabby, in an engrossing novel exploring human nature's darkest facets.