It is March 1483, and surgeon Thomas Berrington is making a reluctant journey to Qurtuba at the request of his master. He expects only to operate on a Spanish prince and return home to Moorish al-Andalus. But fate has something else in store for him and his companion, the eunuch Jorge. A warped killer has been murdering young women and creating twisted creatures from their bodies.

Thomas Berrington has come to the high mountains of Spain’s Sierra Nevada in search of an escape from the loss that haunts him. Standing at the boundary between life or death he cannot decide which to choose. When his friend Jorge Olmos tracks him down Thomas tries to reject him, but Jorge cannot be rejected. Events draw Thomas back toward the world of the living, and he finds himself pursuing the men who stole all hope from him. Thomas’s nemesis Abbot Mandana is working together with his son to gather an army. But for what purpose?

For Thomas Berrington it begins with the mystery of a stolen body. Soon he is hunting a killer searching for the untold wealth of the richest city in Al-Andalus. Moving to Malaka with his family and friends, Thomas hopes for respite from the war that ravages Al-Andalus. Then two events conspire to throw his settled life into chaos. Someone seeks the location of the city’s fabled wealth while Spanish forces gather like storm clouds ready to rain down fire and iron.  

In 1482 the Englishman Thomas Berrington is living in the last remnants of Moorish Spain. A physician, he is an unwilling friend to the most powerful man in the kingdom. When bodies start to turn up, each showing the marks of a savage attack, Thomas is asked to investigate.

When genealogist Jefferson Tayte is hired to prove the identity of a black sheep in his client’s family tree, he unwillingly finds himself drawn into a murder investigation with nothing more to go on than a 150-year-old letter and a connection to a legendary ruby that has been missing for generations. As more letters are mysteriously left for him, Tayte becomes immersed in a centuries-old tale of greed, murder and forbidden love that takes his research from the wilds of the Scottish Highlands to the colour and heat of colonial India. A dark secret is buried in Jaipur. But why is it having such deadly repercussions in the present?