Descending Waves is an account of the havoc by accident that accompanies an experiment into altered mental states, during which Steve Oxford, a technician in a university chemistry department, finds himself involved in bizarre adventures.
    His string of totally out-of-character actions includes several quite outrageous practical jokes, the death of the Professor of Chemistry, plotting revenge against a man who killed one of his friends and offering the freedom of his spare room to the most unlikely member of his circle of acquaintance.
    Oxford also manages to become a suspect for a murder that he did not commit during the course of his unofficial research into the workings of a powerful psychotropic drug. He is the archetypal mad scientist in the sense that he is ploughing his lonely furrow with a sense of complete certainty that he is right. Which is how all scientists, mad or not, get themselves into the most trouble.