Stumbling across a murder scene on the grounds of an old Buddhist temple, Shan uncovers links to a police cover-up and activities at a new internment camp for Tibetan dissidents and is challenged to protect a key witness and navigate a precarious investigation on both sides of the law.

"Shan Tao Yun, now the reluctant constable of a remote Tibetan town, has learned to expect the impossible at the roof of the world, but nothing has prepared him for his discovery when he investigates a report that a nun has been savagely assaulted by ghosts. In an ancient tomb by the old nun lies a gilded saint buried centuries earlier, flanked by the remains of a Chinese soldier killed fifty years before and an American man murdered only hours earlier....