When a mysterious book, The End of Professor Salamandra, starts circulating around Southern State University's Manhattan campus, it's immediately apparent the professor in question is really the verbose Albie Mandragore. Suspicions arise that Mandragore's longtime rival, Charles Greenfield, is the author-their long-standing family feud stretches from pre-war Vienna to New York City of the seventies. Yet no one at the university is spared from gossip, betrayal, and romantic confusion by David Rubin's pen in this insightful, page-turning tale.