Nothing much happens in Donnerville, at least not in the public library. Then the new librarian, Jane Kerry, receives an envelope containing a fifty-dollar bill and a note, instructing her to "Look homeward, angel". Mystified, Jane pulls Thomas Wolfe's novel of that title off the shelf and finds a second envelope. This one holds a hundred-dollar bill, and a clue to another pay-off. Like the first, it is signed "MOG (Master of Games)". Suddenly, Jane is hooked - this is one game she must play to the end.

The Game requires more and more of Jane's strength and ingenuity. It forces her, more than once, to defend her life. It pushes her into actions that she knows are crazy, immoral, criminal. And when she tries to quit, MOG has other ideas...