Into his remedial English class at West Grove Community College comes Susan White Bird, the daughter of a Navajo Indian. Susan is beautiful and shy, but all her life she has been closely protected by her two older brothers, Sam and George. And when college senior Brad Dolman takes a fancy to Susan, there are frightening consequences. Brad's body is found one morning in his automobile, his face and body terribly mutilated - almost as if he has been attacked by a wild animal - and it is Susan's brothers who are immediately arrested.

Only when two more students are attacked do the police realise that the brothers are innocent, and that there is something terrible lurking around the college campus ... something that threatens to transform Susan into the most horrific creature known to Navajo myth. And there is only one man who can save her, a man who can see the oncoming danger - Jim Rook.

It is now left to Jim and his engaging class of slow-lane students to face a shattering confrontation between the cultures of new and ancient America.