[1] The book is a combination of two shorter pieces, the novellas "Double Jeopardy" and "The Square Cube Law," originally published in the magazine Thrilling Wonder Stories in the issues for April, 1952 and June, 1952, respectively.

[1][2][3] The story features Pratt's detective hero George Helmfleety Jones in two adventures dealing with the ramifications of a newly discovered matter-duplication process.

Groff Conklin called the book "a slick, fast-paced science fiction detective story, one of the best-integrated combinations of its kind."

He rates the second part "considerably better than the first," with its "twist on the locked-room school of murder mysteries ... a highly effective one.

"[4] The book was also reviewed by Noah Gordon in Avon Science Fiction and Fantasy Reader, January 1953, an anonymous reviewer in Weird Tales, January 1953, and P. Schuyler Miller in Astounding Science Fiction, April 1953.