Cassandra Peel and the Whispers from Underground

One dominant theme of the book deals with the threat of censorship to civil liberty and to international relations. Cassandra Peel is horrified when her favourite teacher Sarah Beecham is falsely accused of subversive activity by CIA spies incited by Dionysus. Cassandra is kidnapped to Hades Hall by the disguised Dionysus and given into Ares's hands. He demands she discredit Sarah Beecham, whose influence he fears, by accusing her of many kinds of corruption, or Sarah will be renditioned. Ares is seeking to instigate a Doomsday war by spreading cheap nuclear technology to poor nations. In time to prevent a pre-emptive strike by the USA, Eliza the robot shows the technology will not work. Sarah is released through misinformation inserted into the spy network by Cassandra's friend Giorgio. The intelligence agencies' fear of making mistakes makes them vulnerable to such 'top-secret' hoax messages.