For the last several centuries, the men in the family have been allowed to live as a sort of controlled experiment. Now Barkley Bohner's wife wants to bring that experiment to a precipitous close. Our hero takes the rational course and goes into hiding, only to discover that reality - including all humankind that resides therein - is on the verge of collapse. Saving the world requires solving a quantum puzzle that involves an improbable family history dating back to the very first Barkley Bohner at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. Who better to solve that puzzle, with the aid of a streetwise homicide detective, than the founder of the science of improbability, himself? Then Nikola Tesla turns up dead in his New York hotel room 70 years into his future. Things suddenly get complicated ...