In this novel Susan Barrett takes a cool look at our materialistic society in which robbery, according to Tom, is the logical final stage in the pursuit of riches.  Tom himself is a dustman, a graduate who has deliberately turned aside from the expected, accepted path ever onwards, ever upwards.  Robert, his friend from university days, is by contrast working steadily up in a large organisation, struggling to keep pace with the cost of his wife's standard of living, regularly earning more and feeling the poorer for it. 

We find our sympathies fluctuating between unlikeable but logical Tom and hopelessly muddled, very human, Consumer Supreme Robert.  Richard Dudley is the third of this unlikely trio, a well-known and very rich film star who is permanently worried sick about his tax bill.  Tom, as their dustman, offers them a sure way to be rid of their financial cares for once and all …robbery, to take place during the filming of a set-up robbery at Dudley's stately home.

From this moment we are whisked along through this well-contrived, fast-moving plot which culminates in a very funny chase involving several refuse lorries, many agitated film stars who have been robbed of their jewellery, and a diligent film crew mistakenly filming every second. 

Rubbish entertains on several levels and raises some questions about the sort of society we live in, as topical today as it was in the 1970s.