Anna Carr, a brilliant but unconventional, young historian and linguist is hired by maverick scholar, Oliver Cloote and his partner, Gordon Rees after an American academic is murdered and pages from a medieval manuscript go missing from the Bodleian Library. Anna's expertise leads to the discovery of a code drawn by the monk who wrote the missing pages. Cloote suspects that there may be something more to Anna which could turn the tide in their favour in this puzzle of religious writings and pagan magic. Watching from the shadows is businessman, misogynist and sadist Elias Forth and his enigmatic assassin Morten.

Codes, cyphers and deception abound in this intellectual thriller, where the hidden messages of an illuminated manuscript light a trail of intrigue across England and Europe leading to a treasure ready for the taking.