Maurice Allington, dissipated, cultivated, paradoxically engaging, is the modern landlord of a medieval coaching inn, The Green Man. As an old inn should, it has a persistent, long-quiescent ghost: Dr Thomas Underhill, a 17th-century practitioner of the black arts and a sexual deviant suspected of two hideous murders.

Allington becomes the sole witness to the reappearance of Underhill in the hot summer of 1968, during which he has more mundane distractions: major staff crises, a withdrawn adolescent daughter, middle-aged hypochondria aggravated by twenty years of aggressive drinking, and a compulsion to arrange a romp with himself, his wife and his mistress.

Finally, Allington is driven by a series of unpleasant incidents to bring about a climactic confrontation with the supernatural visitant. A cunning blend of terror, suspense, and humor, The Green Man is superb entertainment and a masterly example of the literature of the macabre.