4 ideas
Dougal Douglas, a charming Scot with two bumps on his head that he says are where horns were removed, is hired by the Peckham textile firm Meadows, Meade & Grindley to research 'human problems' such as absenteeism. He also secretly works for its rival under the reversed name Douglas Dougal, and ghostwrites a retired actress's memoirs.
Dougal commits almost no violence himself. He works by legitimising impulses people already hold, such as a wish to skip work, to back out of a marriage, or to act on a hidden grudge. He tells each person what they half-want to hear, and the harm that follows comes from latent resentments and hypocrisies in the community that he makes speakable.
Dougal changes his manner for each audience. He is a sympathetic listener to the landlady and a flattering confidant to the manager, and he impersonates the gestures and illnesses of the people he talks to. Because each person sees their own desires reflected back, they trust him and do not notice that he holds no position himself. The shapeshifting charmer is dangerous because he supplies agreement and not argument.
The novel mocks managerial social science. This suggests that the observer's presence and framing generate the problem the observer is paid to measure. Industrial 'human research' appears as a vehicle for disruption presented as expertise, not as neutral knowledge.