Returning to his car after a university Faculty Club dinner, Professor Emeritus Walter Brinkley finds in the back seat the body of General Philip Armstrong, chairman of the university's board of trustees. Armstrong's head has been bashed in and his face covered with a pig mask.

The general might have been killed by rioting students—or he might have been murdered by a professor who was to be fired because of his liberal views. The problem is given to Assistant District Attorney Bernie Simmons and Lieutenant John Stein, who find the road to the solution full of twists and turns that neither they nor the reader expect.

In this provocative and intriguing mystery Richard Lockridge takes on the generation gap and college dissidents—and, with his usual skill, proves that he is the equal of them all.