Deep in the heart of China, Ling Suchee, a peasant woman, finds her daughter's lifeless body hanging in an outbuilding. Meeting nothing but hostility from the local police, she sends an urgent plea for help to her old friend Liu Hulan, Inspector at the Ministry of Public Security.
A continent away, David Stark, Hulan's lover, sees a close friend gunned down in the street. And when both Hulan and David's investigations lead to Knight International, an American-owned company in virtual control of the Chinese Interior, it seems that murder is just the beginning . . .