14th-century Franciscan monk William of Baskerville and his young novice arrive at a conference to find that several monks have been murdered under mysterious circumstances. To solve the crimes, William must rise up against the Church's authority and fight the shadowy conspiracy of monastery monks using only his intelligence – which is considerable.

An experiment of psychological effects under stressful conditions in a shelter. When fifteen strangers are put into a nuclear shelter to see how long they can survive without interaction with the outside, things work out fine.