When a young archeologist is shot to death, his uncle, Detective Inspector William "Bill" Foy, comes out of retirement to help the London Metropolitan Police track down his killer. Foy's investigation, deeply resented by his immediate superior officer, first concentrates on an artifact, an oracle bone, from China's Bronze Age, which he believes holds the key to the homicide, but much more turns out to be at stake. Foy soon finds himself faced with untangling a complex web of murder, corruption, art theft, and smuggling. With the help of his two young assistants and an Oxford professor, Foy follows the history of the oracle bone and uncovers a ruthless international criminal organization whose origins are traced back to the cataclysmic collapse of Nazi Germany