'Dirty Tricks' follows the hapless exploits of an unscrupulous English tutor at a seedy language school in Oxford. On the surface he is an eternal student: charming, witty and accomplished. Beneath the facade however, he displays a brilliant and ruthless talent for lying and manipulating everyone around him.
Our 'hero' becomes friendly with wealthy couple Dennis and Karen Parsons but his initial feelings of bitterness regarding their success become complicated by a frenzied affair with Karen. This spawns a wild chain of events, from sex and adultery to marriage, money and accusations of murder. Eventually he escapes the leafy Oxford suburbs and the long arm of the law and flees to South America, leaving a trail of madness and intrigue in his wake.