A botanist accidentally unearths the body of a recently buried professor who was fixated upon solving a seemingly impossible riddle by Lewis Carroll. The victim had a long-standing rivalry with his brother - giving Lewis and Hathaway an obvious suspect - but the case is hindered by the mind games of two students who seem intent on causing trouble in their quest to gain admittance to a mysterious club.

When an Oxford psychic is murdered Lewis and Hathaway are soon on the case and one of the first things they learn is that he wasn't a psychic at all! He was a student researching and attempting to debunk people's spiritual beliefs who was acting as a psychic to study the sort of people who when to see them… and taking their money of course. Working out who did it won't be easy as there are plenty of motives; it could be his professor who was involved in a shady government contract, the professional psychic who had uncovered a fraud, his wife who feared he was having an affair or somebody who felt betrayed when they learnt he was a fraud. The method of murder is strange too he was injected with a horse tranquiliser. Inevitably before the case is solved there will be another death and one of our protagonists will find himself in real danger.