This second book in the blistering thriller series featuring Hardington Tachman (aka Hardtack) sees him and his wife Mei Li in Karindu, West Africa, at the start of a new life following their first adventure. Their world is blown apart when they are caught up in a violent, student-led jihadist movement and ensnared in a world of strange prophecies and ritualistic violence. Mei Li is abducted by a crazed juju priestess in league with the jihadists, but is rescued by a Touareg warrior and spirited north into the desert. During this frightening journey, Mei Li loses her memory of Hardtack and of the horrifying events in Karindu. Anchorless, she becomes an unwilling courier, carrying a map that reveals the location of a secret uranium deposit in West Africa. Many people are desperate to obtain this information and will stop at nothing to get it. A transcontinental chase ensues. Reunited with Hardtack in London, Mei Li, who no longer recognises her husband, flees to Istanbul, then to Varanasi in India, where - amidst funeral pyres on the River Ganges - Hardtack will face the fires of cremation, unless Mei Li relinquishes her fatal possession...