This book chronicles the espionage and card playing exploits of Captain Diggery Piper -- a flamboyant expert first created by Terry Quinn for a serial in Games Magazine. Just as Carroll's Through the Looking Glass and Nabokov's The Defense are structured in accordance with the rules and logic of chess, so Quinn has patterned the action of this swift-paced, suspenseful tale on the psychological intricacies of bridge, craftily building a house of cards that tumbles into a surprise ending.