The novella features Brennan's supernatural detective Lucius Leffing and is set during the first
World Fantasy Convention in
Providence, Rhode Island in 1975. Brennan and his detective friend Lucius Leffing investigate the disappearance of Henry L. P. Beckwith from the convention and are led through a bronze door to a complex of subterranean tunnels beneath what H.P. Lovecraft termed 'the Shunned House' at 135 Benefit Street in Providence. They discover that a race of
troglodytes has been surviving beneath Providence and worshipping a huge sea-creature for possibly millenia, but that the troglodytes have now virtually died out. In the interest of safety, Leffing organises to dynamite the underground lair of the sea-monster and of the now-dead troglodytes. The novel (which critic John Clute classes as a 'recursive fantasy') features various real-life personalities who attended the convention as characters, though many are mentioned only in passing. These personalities include
Robert Bloch, Henry L. P. Beckwith,
Kirby McCauley,
Frank Belknap Long,
Gahan Wilson, John H. Stanley (the then-librarian of the Lovecraft Special Collection at
John Hay Library) and others. ==References==