This novel follows a provincial oil minister, Skurt Ancre, from the Russian Far East as he gets drawn into a scheme by China to prevent economic stagnation by grabbing a newly discovered oil field in Tajikistakstan. The story grows to involve a disaster at the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, Iran's constant search for enriched uranium to build its own bomb, and North Korea's dillusional new leader, in a world where international politics creates strange bedfellows. World leaders become involved in unforseen situations that lead to war and leaves them grasping for answers. Even as Ancre's wife is trapped by a terrorist bombing, he must avoid being kidnapped by world leaders who hate him as he devises a scheme to rescue them from their ill-conceived ideas. In a world where political expediencies override publicly declared positions, national enemies become friends and friends are discarded when they are no longer of use. All of this leads to an unanticipated shift in Asia's political structure as Ancre tries to keep one step of his growing list of enemies and protect his own secrets from being discovered.