Anjali Chinak, the curious-minded teenage daughter of a Cambodian detective, is shocked by the fatal rape of her Eurasian friend, Esmè Laurent, the governor’s daughter. Anjali believes the perpetrator is the same man who has wreaked havoc in other Asian countries. On a scorching April day in1920, in Siem Reap, a town of majestic Khmer ruins and opulent French-colonial edifices, Asian authorities meet to address the crisis. The multiple rapes and murders have triggered pandemonium in cities of Annam, Burma, Laos, and Siam. Beautiful young women have been lured to abandoned buildings and raped with a foreign object; their bodies left to bleed, contract infection, stiffen, and rot. Anjali identifies the foreign object. She knows the killer’s identity. She sets out to prove her theory, only to be lured and brutalized herself. Will the young sleuth survive the attack and bring this murderer to justice?