Having been made High Commissioner in Nairobi, Ed Barnes is keeping his head down and staying out of trouble. But when his daughter, Sophie, is kidnapped following a security crisis for which he is blamed, his attempts at normality fall apart once again. He finds himself at the heart of a complex negotiation with a dangerous Somali terrorist group, in an effort to avert a regional security crisis and free his daughter.

Meanwhile, across the globe a series of political assassinations have been shaking the world of business and government. Tensions boil over when a Chinese envoy is murdered in Jordan, only days before a crucial climate change conference, sparking a diplomatic crisis and the threat of US/China confrontation.

In the search for his daughter, Ed Barnes follows the trail of violence from Kenya, through the highest levels of the UN in Geneva, to the Dead Sea in Jordan. With the world on the cusp of ecological crisis, Barnes must uncover the terrible truth about the assassinations before any irreparable damage is done ...