Renée Stone is a successful English mystery novelist and an independent free spirit. In this first book of the series, she finds herself in Ethiopia for the coronation of Haile Selassie I in 1930. There she meets John Malowan, a bumbling archaeologist whose grandfather unearthed the Epic of Gilgamesh. Unbeknownst to Stone and Malowan, a host of parties are conspiring to take advantage of the grandson in order to get their hands on a hidden treasure that dates back to Mesopotamian times. Renée Stone finds herself in the midst of a murder mystery full of colorful characters who could have come straight out of her novels.

For Ian Mallory, life as he knew it ended the day his wife was murdered, in an attack that sent him into a coma. Three years later, he’s woken up, with the bullet still lodged inside his brain. Any attempt to remove it will kill him, but that isn’t all: because of the bullet, he feels emotions several hours after they occur. An affliction that may be a gift—at least in the eyes of the NSA.