The Seventh Function of Language

A mystery surrounding the death of semiologist Roland Barthes populated with his contemporaries in the field, some significant political figures in France and other European nations at the time, and the novelist unsure of his part in the outcome and meaning of the book. 

But wait, there's more: 3 other dead bodies, spies, and a secret society called the Logos Society in which members duel with rhetorical or semiological wit and the loser can lose a fingertip, a hand, or worse; Lacan, Umberto Eco, Searle, Derrida (who ends up killed), a pair of Japanese guys who always come to the rescue of the policeman and professor who are leading us in search of Barthes' potential killer or killers. And a missing paper of Barthes' that may contain a vital clue.