Armed men invade the Queen apartment. At their head is Abel Bendigo, brother of one of the world's most powerful men. King Bendigo of Bodigen Arms, an industrial monster whose tentacles embrace the planet. Someone is threatening to kill King, and Ellery must undertake to save his hated life. Virtual prisoners, Ellery and his father Inspector Queen are whisked away in a private plane to mysterious island "somewhere in the Atlantic." In a frightening atmosphere of concentration camp, industrial slavery, and brute militarism, Ellery comes to grips with a baffling murderer who calmly announces not only the exact date of the assassination, but the exact hour and minute as well. He finds himself matching wits with the fascinating American-born King, handsome, cynical, an absolute monarch; with King's disturbing wife, Karla, from a European royal family; Abel, King's Prime Minister, of acute intelligence; and Judah, the saturnine little third brother with an inexhaustible thirst for expensive cognac.