Lance Blunt, despite the best efforts of his parents and teachers, has never been able to read. Even if he stares at a word until his corneas bleed, the letters remain indecipherable rubble. When an anonymous postcard offers him a job at Emberton Dictionary and suggests that there he will find the resolution to his "particular difficulty," he goes for an interview, hoping that someone at this prestigious repository of words can finally teach him. Behind the revolving doors of the Emberton Tower, Lance finds only more mysteries, like the pretty young etymologist who works there one day and is gone the next, and the company's private hospital hidden behind frosted glass on the third floor, not to mention what is possibly the world's worst company cafeteria. With the fate of human language itself at stake, Lance must confront what is hidden in the Tower and discover the cost of harnessing the power of words.