Once a high-flying international lawyer, part of the inner circle of government power, Jack Shepherd has abandoned the savage politics of Washington for the lethargic backwater of Bangkok. Now he is just an unremarkable professor at an unimportant university in an insignificant city. Or is he?

A secretive Asian bank collapses under dubious circumstances. A former law partner Shepherd thought was murdered reveals himself as the force behind the disgraced bank and coerces Shepherd into tracking the money that disappeared in the collapse. A twisting trail of deceit   leads Shepherd from Bangkok to Hong Kong and eventually to an isolated villa on the island of Phuket where Shepherd confronts the evil at the heart of a monstrous game of international treachery.

A lawyer among people who laugh at the law, a friend in a land where today’s allies are tomorrow’s fugitives, Jack Shepherd battles a global tide of corruption, extortion and murder that threatens to engulf both him and the new life he has worked so hard to build.