Viola and Carl risk their reputations and academic careers for an illicit passion - music - which they hide under the respectable cover of an affair. The year is 2063, and actual music-making has become taboo, replaced in popularity and esteem by the spectacle around it, notably their specialism: the balletic art of page-turning, or Paginatorics.A newcomer to their department, the management-speaking Stephen Pendleton, is given charge of a reorganisation that quickly becomes unusually purposeful. His intent is unclear, but threatening. What does he know, and who is really giving him his orders?And why is a routine girls-night-out for Viola taking on an increasingly sinister edge?As threats multiply, the quest for answers enmeshes a widening circle of friends and colleagues, most notably the almost-human librarians. But who are the conspirators, and are they actually in control?