Keith Jessup is a PhD student at Oxford University completing his studies in early English literature. One of his professors has for years been searching for a 17th-century manuscript written by John Milton that purportedly addresses one of the major questions in English literature: the true meaning of Paradise Lost. When this professor fails to arrive to deliver a lecture disclosing the contents of the long-sought Milton Manuscript, Keith begins to worry-and rightfully so, for he soon discovers that his professor is dead. In spite of warnings that there may be those willing to do anything to.