In Edwardian era London, Gabriel Syme is recruited at Scotland Yard to a secret anti-anarchist police corps. Gabriel soon finds himself at a secret underground anarchist meeting place, under oath not to disclose its existence to anyone. The central council consists of seven men, each using the name of a day of the week as a cover. When the position of Thursday is about to be voted on, Gabriel puts his name in the mix, changing the direction of his life forever.

Like most of Chesterton's fiction, the story includes some Christian allegory. Chesterton, claimed that he wrote this book as an unusual affirmation that goodness and right were at the heart of every aspect of the world. However, he insisted: "The book ... was not intended to describe the real world as it was, or as I thought it was, even when my thoughts were considerably less settled than they are now. It was intended to describe the world of wild doubt and despair which the pessimists were generally describing at that date; with just a gleam of hope in some double meaning of the doubt, which even the pessimists felt in some fitful fashion."

This case laminate collector's edition includes a Victorian inspired dust-jacket.