It had all begun with a simple quest to locate a rare book.

When archaeologist Robert Quinn obtained a rare occult book for an academic rival,, and the man was grotesquely murdered, Quinn became a suspect. His ordeal had only begun.

The book was one of the dreadful volumes revered by a demonic church whose rites included human sacrifice, and which had obscene designs on Quinn’s fiancée and her sister. Quinn had entered a tangled maze of horror which would lead him from London to Boston, and finally to New Orleans and the lawless bayous outside it. He would face brutal street thugs, hideous visions in an abandoned church, and a madwoman’s monstrous offspring in a cellar. He would oppose a railroad and coal millionaire with a hidden past, ally himself with a Louisiana political boss, and encounter voodoo. Before their nightmare was over, the women would suffer abduction and stand in danger of forced transport to Honduras, where a grim ancient temple and its occupant waited.

To prevent that, Quinn would make the acquaintance of a jaded, cynical artist, enter a conclave of ghouls, and raid a Storyville brothel to trap a sadist.

Quinn would be less of a bibliophile before it was over.