Marcia Mellon, author of TV scripts and detective stories, comes to the Palazzo Agrippina at Arco Felice, just outside Pozzuoli on the Bay of Naples, where the fumaroles at the Phlegraean Fields smoulder like smoke vents from Hell, and in the distance, Mt. Vesuvius rises above the bay, quiescent but menacing. A disparate group of students have enrolled in the Palazzo Agrippina's summer program, bound together by a common interest in Roman archaeology. The director, DeWitt Fordham hopes to be appointed dean of his college, and his assistant, Dr. Alex, hopes to take Fordham's place. Decimus Monroe Thatcher, president the society sponsoring Palazzo Agrippina program has come to inspect the session, and with him is son Conradin, a troubled teenager who is a disappointment to his father. Nearby, connected by a path to Palazzo Agrippina back yard, is the Albergo Felice, a small hotel and bar,, where the sinister Luigi and his cousin Tony are in charge. Its bar is a favorite watering hole for students at the Palazzo. There are two deaths - or are they murders? Did Conradin commit suicide? Marcia thinks it was murder. The reader must decide.