Jon Swift is in trouble.

His journalism career is in freefall.

He's too old to be part of the new world order and he's never learned to suck up to those in charge. But experience has taught him to trust his instincts.

When, for the first time in years, Jon runs into Lin Lifeng in a café in Oxford he wonders if the meeting is a coincidence. When Lin asks him to pass on a coded message, he knows it's not.

Travelling to Beijing, Jon starts to follow a tangled web in which it is hard to know who he can trust. Under the watchful eyes of an international network of spies, double-agents and politicians, all with a ruthless desire for power, Jon is in a high-stakes race to expose the truth, before it's too late.