Simon Standish is a criminal lawyer in a family business in New Zealand. He is asked to defend a woman from the United Sultanates of Bagus, known as the USB. Jasmin Killian appears to have murdered a fellow student at a rugby match in Dunedin. There is no Immigration Department record for this woman. As Standish learns more about Jasmin he comes to believe that the possible successors to the Sultanate of Sungai Utan in the USB are being hunted down by an assassin. This appears to be an internet contract but who is paying the murderer? And where is this killer? Standish is helped in his investigation by a shovel-wielding farmer, a drug caching student, a criminal pair now turned saviours, and his partner Stephanie. A renegade policeman joins his team but can this man be trusted?