Variables

Neil Denton, a psychology researcher, has reached a crisis in his career: he no longer believes in research, despite its claim to control variables. Everything seems pointless; nothing is proved. No matter how meticulous the research design, there is no way of knowing if there is some overlooked variable. Every study is challenged by a counter study. Dubbed his Hamlet Complex by Rachel Probender, he can't move forward, languishes in a state of inertia, his own PhD research into research at a standstill.

Neil works in a department that specialises in replicating classic studies, led by Professor Matlock, famed for replicating Milgram's obedience research in England. Matlock has no doubts. For him, control of variables defines psychology as a science.

Ironically, an uncontrolled variable has begun sabotaging the replications, making the department a target of media ridicule. But who and why? The saboteur is remarkably well informed, but who is the informer – a disgruntled insider perhaps?

Rachel Probender, colleague and close friend of Neil, is researching the novel Frankenstein. Unknown to both, there is a connection between Frankenstein, the Psychology Department's celebrated research into obedience, and the sabotage.

Suspected of being the informer, Neil, helped by Rachel, sets out to identify the informer and along the way resolves his own crisis.

Set in the 1990s, the novel is a satire on the pitfalls of separate disciplines and the limitations of psychology as a science, and asks, what is science?