When the Master of St Mary's House, Cambridge, hires Tim Lacy to retrieve a collection of eighteenth-century documents willed to it by a wealthy past member of the college, he omits to mention that these manuscripts have a possible connection with the suicide of the late Dean and that there are those who remain determined to ensure that the documents never reach the College library.

Supposedly penned by a scandal-mongering member of the notorious Hellfire Club, these papers, if genuine, could be of enormous historical significance and monetary value. And their significance is not lost on Lacy when an academic friend who has been helping him on the case is murdered. When it emerges that the Hellfire Club has repercussions into the highest circles of the current day, Lacy must fight to reveal a dark, long-kept secret before anyone else pays with their life...