On a languid midsummer’s day, old Adam Godley, a renowned mathematician, is dying. His family gathers at his bedside: his son, young Adam, struggling to maintain his marriage; his nineteen-year-old daughter, Petra, filled with voices and visions; their stepmother, Ursula, whose relations with the Godley children are strained at best; and Petra’s “young man”—very likely more interested in the father than the daughter. But the Godley family is not alone in their vigil. Around them hovers a family of mischievous immortals—among them, Zeus, Pan, and Hermes, all with agendas of thier own! As old Adam’s days on earth run down, these unearthly beings start to stir up trouble, to sometimes wildly unintended effect.

Bart Minnock, founder of the computer-gaming giant U-Play, enters his private playroom, and eagerly can't wait to lose himself in an imaginary world, to play the role of a sword-wielding warrior king, in his company's latest top-secret project, Fantastical. The next morning, he is found in the same locked room, in a pool of blood, his head separated from his body. It is the most puzzling case Eve Dallas has ever faced, and it is not a game. . . .