Amidst unprecedented chaos on campus – vandalism, rape, even murder – the Chancellor aims to destroy the Order, a mysterious secret society founded at the College 200 years earlier. The Castle, a replica of a Norman fortress where the group conducts its rituals, is slated for demolition, and Harry Monmouth, a one-time member, is enlisted to defend the “knights” and their secrets. His efforts lead him into the past, to the beginning of the Order and events that cast light on the present-day turmoil. The Order is the latest entry in the New Hope Canon, a series of novels – including A Hollow Cup, Gods and Lesser Men and Lucifer’s Promise – that depict generations of life and death in New Hope, a small college town in the South. Told from the perspective of Harry Monmouth, a Baby Boomer of a certain age with a jaundiced view of what his generation has wrought, The Order mixes toxic campus politics with murder and destruction, confronting Harry with new challenges that portend total disaster.