LAPD Nick Lambert is in his Captain's bad books and is not considered very reliable and as a punishment is given low-level assignments. One day he is told a dead naked body has been discovered near a Los Angeles Chinese Supermarket. The deceased had been shot several times but no bullets were located and there were other injuries to the body. The fingerprints appeared to have been professionally filed off so that it was impossible to identify him. The medical examiner, whilst investigating what the deceased last ate, discovered that secreted within his body was a rolled up paper bearing thirteenth century Latin text, but with modern handwriting on the top "Tina Fides-113". Lambert is told that two FBI Special Agents are interested in the case and are currently trying to get the Latin translated, in the meantime they had established that 'Tina Fides' was a autistic psychiatric patient in a local mental hospital called Oakdene and the number next to her name was her bedroom number. Nick is instructed to go to the hospital facility, check her out and find out what she knows.

Nick discovers that Tina is unable to speak and that makes the case look like a dead end, but then a chance remark from the charge nurse, sends Nick off in a completely different direction. Nick discovers that this is no ordinary case. Nick discovers that Tina has an elder sister named Sarah, a freelance archaeologist-Nick finds himself entering a labyrinth of hidden secrets that leaves the world of ordinary policing far behind.

From this inauspicious start is an adventure like none other that I've read recently, I was blown away by this story which I just could not put down. It has a multifaceted storyline that takes one between several different times from 1132 to the present to a future in 2043 but with many of the same characters. This is a very powerful story, of an intensity which makes it the best that I've read this year. The book is quite long, but it was so interesting the pages just flew by and I found I did not want it to end.