The coed missing from Tisquanto State is the daughter of Governor Sam Holland's rival for reelection—and best friend. But she is more than that. She is Laura Thornton, a human being—somehow the pawn and victim of angry student upheavals not even the governor understands …

Who is behind Laura's disappearance? Who is inciting Tisquanto's protests and riots—a madcap prankster, an earnest reformer … or a conspiracy sworn to the college's destruction?

It is a case for Mike McCall, the governor's special assistant, a two-fisted troubleshooter who finds his crimes in the crises of modern America … Mike McCall, who finds on Tisquanto's campus not only the raging hatreds of rebelling youth—but murder!