National Network for Equitable Library Service

Spencer Collins thinks his life at Harvard will be all about basketball and pre-med, hard workouts and grinding work in class. The friends he’s made when he hits the storied, ivy-clad campus from a very different life in urban Chicago are a happy bonus. But Spencer is about to be introduced to the most mysterious inner sanctum of the inner sanctum: To his surprise, he’s in the running to be “punched” for one of Harvard’s elite final clubs. The Delphic Club is known as “The Gas” for its crest of three gas-lit flames, and as Spencer is considered for membership, he’s plunged not only into the secret world of male privilege that The Gas represents, but also into a century-old club mystery. Because at the heart of the Delphic, secured deep inside its guarded mansion club, is another secret society: a shadowy group of powerful men known as The Ancient Nine. Who are The Ancient Nine? And why is Spencer - along with his best friend, Dalton Winthrop - summoned to the deathbed of Dalton’s uncle just as Spencer is being punched for the club? What does the lore about a missing page from one of Harvard’s most historic books mean? And how does it connect to religion, murder, and to the King James Bible, if not to King James himself?