Paul Gibson buys a cadaver from body snatchers and discovers that the supposedly natural death of Foreign Office clerk Alexander Ross was caused by a stiletto wound. Because Gibson obtained the body illegally, Sebastian must investigate without revealing either the murder or the source of the evidence.
Ross's work carries Sebastian into the Russian, American and Ottoman diplomatic communities during the shifting alliances of 1812. The victim's private relationships and access to confidential information expose a struggle in which espionage, war and personal betrayal are difficult to separate.