Physics and film seemingly have few academic features in common. However, when local siren Bunny Baldwin, a student in the Film Studies Department at Cushing College, is found strangled to death on opening night of the Hitchcock Film Festival, Physics professor Edwina Goodwin puts on her detecting hat. Using her scientific sleuthing skills to assist her almost boyfriend Police Detective Will Tenney, the pair work together to investigate the campus murder. Edwina wants to know--why did the murderer tie a strip of film around the victim's head? Why did the killer time the murder to coincide with the showing of the famous Hitchcock film Spellbound? Was Bunny really killed by strangulation or did the unusual drugs found in her system suggest poisoning? Why do all the suspects have a seemingly airtight alibi? There are certainly sufficient suspects as Edwina quickly ascertains. The head of the Film Studies Department was having a torrid and practically public affair with the victim. His wife was apparently furiuous, but not enough to keep her from also engaging in sexual hanky panky. The victim had stolen a screenplay written by her roommate, Mary, to secure a Hollywood agent. Mary is out for payback. A quirky older woman who uses plants and other natural remedies to cure various ailments followed the head of the department around like a moon-struck calf. And, of course, there's the film department's boy savant who plays chess with Edwina and keeps her updated on the various players. Can Edwina use her knowledge of physics to unlock the strange features of this most unusual crime? When a second murder occurs, it looks like she may--if the killer doesn't find her first.

Alan Sidebottom was what some outside the rarified world of academic physics might call a superstar. In the realm of string theory, black holes, and the Higgs-Boson particle, Sidebottom was a celebrity. So, when tiny Cushing College snagged him for their faculty, all the physics professors were excited--and threatened. It seemed that most of them had personal reasons to despise Sidebottom. Edwina Goodman, one of Cushing's youngest physics professors, and one of the few who held no animosity towards the newcomer, was given the daunting--and unwelcome--task of escorting Sidebottom around campus. So, when the great man was found dead shortly after his arrival--apparently murdered--Edwina believed it her responsibility to track down her charge's killer. Would her scientific brain be able to ignore the fact that the entire pool of suspects apparently resided within the walls of her very own department? Or would the young police detective Will Tenney spark a different kind of investigatory zeal in Edwina? It remained to be seen, for all was not as it first seemed in the world of invisible particles and mathematical equations--at least not at Cushing College. And the murder of one noted physicist might not be the last.