The story opens with a dramatic event when a hard faced informant in a sleazy French bar offers Baxter information which seemed too good to be true. Baxter, a seasoned antique dealer with observational skills sharper than most, uncovers far more than he bargained for when he crosses the path of Max Veerman, a successful businessman whose veneer of respectability masks corruption and murder; who heads London Beaux-arts d'Asie cartel, a world-wide organisation set up to facilitate the repatriation of cultural heritage back to Asia. The Chinese call it 'Keeping the dragon in the box.' Baxter encounters murder, kidnap, betrayal and a secret world of strange characters living amongst the dead, far below the streets of Paris as well as Omega Group West, an organisation that no European government would admit to the existence of. When he crosses the cartel he thinks he has everything under control but eventually discovers he is someone's puppet and they are pulling his strings. He knows more than one person is plotting to kill him, he has doubts about everybody around him, he can no longer trust anyone or anything-not even his own heart. Baxter is unable to resist the seductive wiles of the beautiful Magali; she is at the core of the story, a three-dimensional character that is interesting, imperfect and intriguing. Someone whose past is constantly wrapped in strands of mystery. Every event that unfolds in this tale is unexpected and increasingly entangled in clues leading to even more mysteries.