When John Dyer returns to Oxford from Brazil with his young son, Leandro, he expects a quiet life. His time living on the edge as a foreign correspondent is over.

But these rainy streets turn out to be just as treacherous as those he used to walk in Rio. Leandro's schoolmates are the children of powerful people, and a chance conversation with another father, Iranian scientist Rustum Marvar, sets Dyer onto a truly dangerous path.

Then Marvar disappears. Soon, sinister factions are circling, and become acutely interested in what Dyer knows about Marvar's world-changing discovery...