Paul Wood is trekking with another backpacker in the Annapurna Range of the Himalayas when they find the still-warm body of a Canadian with his skull smashed in and a swiss army knife plunged into each eye. An extraordinarily brutal and unusual crime, except that Paul has seen such a death before. His girlfriend was murdered in Cameroon two years before and her eyes had been mutilated in an identical way. Another terrible similarity: the local authorities are not interested in investigating a murder of and by foreigners and the crimes are barely reported. Using every means he can, Paul tries to uncover the killer. But it may be someone he knows. And that means the killer could find him first.