Richard Papen had never been to New England before his nineteenth year. Then he arrived at Hampeden College and quickly became seduced by the sweet, dark rhythms of campus life, in particular by an elite group of five students, Greek scholars, worldly, self-assured, and at first glance, highly unapproachable. Yet as Richard was accepted and drawn into their inner circle, he learned a terrifying secret that bound them to one another, a secret about an incident in the woods in the dead of night where an ancient rite was brought to brutal life and led to a gruesome death. And that was just the beginning.