Royal Thai Police Detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep is called to investigate a crime scene in Bangkok, which quickly reveals itself to be anything but typical. For one thing, the victim has been beheaded in a bizarre manner, and for another, a message was left in blood. Then Sonchai is summoned to a river in the middle of the night to observe a spectacle that violates everything he holds dear as a Thai, as a Buddhist, and as a human being. A trail of breadcrumbs has been carefully laid out for him, but by whom? Sonchai’s search for answers takes him deep into the Cambodian jungle, where he faces a conspiracy that may implicate the American CIA and the Chinese military --- and discovers exactly how far a government will go to protect its worst secrets.