A tense and gripping tale of horror and desire. In a pyramid-shaped tomb, in the forest, lie the last remains of Doctor Septimus Carr. An evil necromancer, he believed the bodily fluids of virgins could rejuvenate him; his grisly experiments claiming the life of a servant girl. Now, two centuries later, another girl is in mortal danger. Enter Gilray. Short and chubby, with a turn of speech as bizarre as his attire, Gilray has flown back in time to prevent the wickedness he fears is looming. But it's no simple task. For a start, who is the girl? Is it Linda Blake, Pauline Withers, Cassandra Ashe? Their teacher, flirtatious, poetry-loving Bob Wheatley, is the man whose help Gilray needs most, but he is preoccupied with passionate affairs of his own. At the same time, unknown to Gilray, the sinister Rosa and Robin Underleaf are planning to resurrect their "Master". The key, it seems, is the malign doctor's lost book of spells, if only Gilray can find and interpret it in time. The book explores a number of very different male-female relationships as it moves towards its chilling climax. John Gordon is the author of "The Ghost on the Hill", "The Burning Baby and Other Ghosts", 'The House on the Brink" ,"The Grasshopper" and "Ordinary Seaman".