Blood-mottled walls mark a gory crime scene without a body, and a shocked witness tells an impossible story - that's what awaits Conrad Blake, a Boston private detective, when he answers a desperate midnight call. Amidst the evidence, he uncovers a peculiar object of antiquity and the passport of the victim, a promising anthropologist. But murder is only the tip of the iceberg. Nefarious intelligent minds are hard at work as Conrad walks the strands of a convoluted web that lead to an unimaginable truth - a truth that forever changes his perception of reality.