Killer Queen is a dark and amusing satire of the state of education in England’s secondary schools, from the mid-1980s to the current day. 

Kingswater Comprehensive School in a post-industrial working-class district of on the outskirts of London, is rebranded Kingswater Academy. The re-structuring of staff and curriculum is an opportunity that is too good to be missed, and becomes the scene of Candy Regent’s ruthless Lady Macbeth-like rise to the top. She is a veritable force of nature, sweeping all before her. Powerless, classroom teachers like Paul McSmart, senior teachers like Duncan Knight, a policemen, and of course the children, are merely pawns on the chessboard of her career, as she moves towards a final checkmate! 

An Ofsted inspection brings the school to a crisis point, and the events that unfold during and beyond the inspection are compelling and devilish. Allen Peppitt’s description of the collective sabotage of a lesson being delivered by a senior teacher who is despised by the children, could only be written by someone who has worked within the system.

Thankfully, Candy is a fictitious person, but Allen Peppitt has based his brilliant and insightful narrative on his almost forty years of experiences and relationships as a secondary teacher. 

“A brilliant little piece of satire on the state of an education system rife with Machiavellian chicanery and wrong-headedness...”

Martin Ouvry, Jericho Writers

ISBN: 978-1-912978-04-5