When her favorite customer, a lonely yet charming old man, dies right in front of her, Cassie holds on to the last book he was reading, which turns out to be a rare volume that has great power and she is tasked with protecting it from those who will do evil.

The hunt for his killer leads a dead professor of supernatural phenomena into the perilous intrigues of aliens, fairy folk, and time-travelers in this classic of science fiction. Until the day he was murdered, Professor Peter Maxwell was a respected faculty member of the College of Supernatural Phenomena. Imagine his chagrin when he turns up at a Wisconsin matter transmission station several weeks later and discovers he's not only dead but unemployed....