An absorbing and thorough overview of the trade, at the tail-end of wartime rationing, addressing the various aspects of keeping a shop: from product knowledge, customer service, book-keeping and merchandising techniques to information about pests (there is a long description of the life-cycle of the Ephestia Moth). A chapter towards the close opens with the line: ‘In addition to chocolates, sweets and tobacco, many of your customers enjoy a murder’ - mercifully, the divergence it encourages is actually the suggestion of a library as ‘an attractive and profitable sideline’ within the shop, especially if ‘meeting the public demand for stories of romance, horror, mystery, espionage, cattle rustling and sudden death’