Tim Molloy, the charismatic founder and leader of the Future Party, is found brutally murdered in the Sculpture Garden of the Australian National Gallery in Canberra. Nearby are found a photograph of Kirsten Crosby, wife of James Crosby a very senior member of the incumbent government, and a cartouche decorated with Egyptian hieroglyphics. What, if any, connection do they have with Molloy’s murder? Was it politically motivated or the result of events far from Canberra in Molloy’s past? These are questions Dom Mackenzie, a journalist who had been in Canberra less than twenty-four hours before discovering the body, Susan Carton, a freelance journalist and Tom Connors, close friend of Molloy and key player in the struggle to keep the Freedom Party viable after Molloy's death, set out to answer.