Welcome to Frolic Street, the bizarre thoroughfare atop the kilometer-long spaceship on which the entire action of this book takes place. It is a futuristic combination of Carnaby Street, a flea market, and Coney Island. Among its incredible shops is a watchmaker's where time runs backward, and among its picturesque, milling crowds is a would-be assassin.

Join King Zhavar, ruler of the distant planet Ligeria, to which the spaceship is headed, as he strolls along Frolic Street. With him is beautiful young Claudine St. Cyr of Galactic Police, who is at the moment his bodyguard—a full-time job on a spaceship loaded with Ligerian fanatics dedicated to killing their king. Even before takeoff there is an attempt on his life, but assassination is only the first, and least, of threats in this swift-paced science-fiction mystery.

Among the other passengers on this suspenseful voyage are a religious fanatic who prophesies doom for the whole ship and a mysterious magician with extraordinary powers. Complications follow one another swiftly when the ship's captain is murdered. The atomic fuel pile driving the ship has been tampered with, so that the ship and all its passengers will explode. Soon tension builds on this terror voyage aboard a ship that has become a deathstar.

Set against this exciting and imaginative science-fiction background, the story proceeds as an ingeniously contrived mystery. There is the double problem of finding the killer—who strikes again—and saving the ship. Come aboard and exercise your wits and whet your appetite for excitement with this unique thriller.