Gage Chandler is descended from kings. That’s what his mother always told him. Years later, he is a true crime writer, with one grisly success --- and a movie adaptation --- to his name, along with a series of subsequent less notable efforts. But now he is being offered the chance for the big break: to move into the house where a pair of briefly notorious murders occurred, apparently the work of disaffected teens during the Satanic Panic of the 1980s. He begins his research with diligence and enthusiasm, but soon the story leads him into a puzzle he never expected --- back into his own work and what it means, back to the very core of what he does and who he is.

Isolated by a disfiguring injury since the age of 17, Sean Phillips crafts imaginary worlds for strangers to play in. As the creator of “Trace Italian” --- a text-based, role-playing game played through the mail --- Sean guides players worldwide through his intricately imagined terrain. However, when two high school students take their play into the real world, disaster strikes. Sean is pulled back through time, tracing back toward the moment of his own self-inflicted departure from the world in which most people live.