Madeleine Galli is a young forensic psychologist who has just arrived in Venice to speak at a medical symposium, visit her aunt, and hopefully see some historic Italian art. At her favourite café she shares a table with a mysterious man who introduces himself as Logan Milan. Madeleine asks about his occupation and that simple enquiry sets in motion a chain of events, transporting Madeleine from her comfortable world into a new and far more dangerous existence where the laws of the universe she knows and trusts seem to have been twisted and replaced by a new set After a short but strange conversation, Madeleine agrees to meet Logan for an evening meal, partly to clarify some of the strange things he has said. Logan discovers that Madeleine has special abilities and talents which set her apart and make her very interesting to him. One ability in particular highlights her as exceptional, and it's an ability she is completely unaware she possesses. Over dinner, Logan states his occupation is a collector of knowledge. Specifically, knowledge in the form of ancient writings about a lost art related to hypnosis. This is an extremely powerful art whose secrets date back five thousand years to ancient Egypt - to the time of the first Pharaoh and a time when some people became so powerful they were treated like gods. Logan tells Madeleine of disturbing recent events that indicate someone is using the forbidden art to gather wealth and influence in Asia and Europe. In the latest incident, a Zürich bank manager has risen from his bed at three in the morning and, in front of his startled wife, left the house and driven to his bank where the security guard reports he spent some time in his office with an Oriental man and a teenage African girl. Bizarrely, the trio are arrested after leaving the bank when the manager's car rams a police vehicle. Equally strange, no crime seems to have been committed at the bank. The manager professes to have no memory of events past the time he retired to bed. With no evidence of a crime, the people arrested must be released soon. Believing Madeleine can help his investigation, Logan invites her to accompany him immediately to Zürich. That decision launches the pair along a path that in equal measure becomes ever more dangerous and more mysterious as they struggle to unravel the meaning of the events whirling around them and race to unearth an object that is rapidly becoming the key to victory or failure - a golden cylinder reputed to contain artefacts of great power. The stakes rise dramatically with each passing hour as they find it necessary to evade both the Police and their ruthless adversary who moves with increasing brutality to eliminate anyone who gets in his way. With the power of the objects contained in the golden cylinder under his control, his plans for global domination would be unstoppable.