Amelia Preston never imagined she would return to Russia, but now, a year after her husband's disappearance, she can't stop herself from going back to the murky world that took him from her. Battling her fears and guilt about the events of the previous year, she sets off on a quest to find answers. She has no idea where to begin or who to trust. All she knows is that her husband Robert, Canada's ambassador to Russia, was involved in high-stakes negotiations between two powerful diamond mining companies when he went missing. And one of those companies has just made a startling announcement...

Two candles flaring at a Christmas crib. A nurse who steps inside a church to light them. A gunshot emptied in a man's head in the creaking stillness before dawn, that the nurse says she didn't hear. It's 1947 in the snowbound, war-scarred City of London, where Pandora's Box just got opened in the ruins, City Police has a vice killing on its hands, and a spooked councilor hires a shamus to help spare his blushes. Like the Buddha says, everything is connected. So it all can be explained. But that's a little cryptic when you happen to be the shamus, and you're standing over a corpse.