*The book that inspired the Burt Lancaster film, 'The Midnight Man', now back in print * The rites of spring are well underway on the small Midwestern campus of Jordan City College when Morgan Butler reluctantly agrees to pinch hit for his ailing Marine buddy, the town constable. For Butler, a former detective turned gentleman farmer, it all seems fairly routine until he stumbles on the brutally murdered body of the beautiful, frosty coed Natalie Clayborne. In search for the girl's killer he plunges into a thick web of intrigue that turns up two more murders and begins to uncover shocking relationships between notable members of the academic community. The closer Butler gets to the situation, the more it appears that a disreputable member of the faculty still carries a torch for Natalie's mother; that the relationship between Natalie and her father was more than a little out of the ordinary; and that the distinguished editor of the local newspaper knows more about the secrets Natalie shared with her hippy boyfriend than he is letting on. This is a powerful story about the explosive forces lurking beneath the staid veneer of the academic environment, and about the men and women forced to live behind this mask of respectability. The murder is the catalyst which unleashes a flood of pent-up furies and finally forces into the open the hidden secrets that have affected the very foundation of the community.