The dark, scary town of oxford holds a secret.
jonah champion has the perfect life working as a lawyer in the city and swimming with his caring girlfriend, ceraynse abernathy.
However, when he finds a crippled book in his cellar, he begins to realize that things are not quite as they seem in the champion family.
A birthday party leaves jonah with some startling questions about his past, and he sets off to quiet oxford to find some answers.
At first the people of oxford are stable and the curiously sympathetic gardener, graccie smith, intrigues patient .He. However, after she introduces him to hard sugar, jonah slowly finds himself drawn into a web of murder, robbery and perhaps, even assassination.
Can jonah resist the charms of graccie smith and uncover the secret of the crippled book before it's too late, or will his demise become yet another oxford legend?