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Christopher Marlowe is just about to graduate from Cambridge.  His good friend Ralph Whitingside has been missing for two days.  He and his friends set about looking for him.  Marlowe discovers Whitingside dead in his own bed.  Before getting away, Marlowe takes some papers he finds in Whitingside's flat.

Marlowe doesn't agree with the coroner's inquest that determined Whitingside's death was a suicide.  Marlowe is sent to London to consult with John Dee, advisor to Queen Elizabeth.  Based on Marlowe's description of the body, he thinks that Whitingside had been poisoned with a tincture of foxglove. Dee hopes to get answers from the corpse.

Another of Marlowe's friends is found dead upon his and Dee's return to Cambridge.  Henry Bromerick was a young man Marlowe had hoped to graduate with.  He has died in the same manner as Whitingside.

Meanwhile, Robert Greene is set on doing damage to Marlowe, by any means possible.  Francis Hall has also come to town in search of Marlowe.  Hall is someone that Marlowe doesn't know.

At the same time, Marlowe accidentally discovers that Whitingside's journal is written, not in code, but rather in a mirror image.  He and his two compatriots come to the realisation that there were once five of them, and two are now dead.  It appears that the remaining three are destined to die, too for some unknown reason.  How will Marlowe prevent this from happening?

Author M. J. Trow has several twists and turns in this novel before the reader finds out the actual culprit.  A quick, but good read.