LOS ANGELES TIMES BESTSELLER • The acclaimed author of Snow Flower and the Secret Fan combines ancient myth with contemporary anxieties of religious fanaticism and terrorism to tell “an absorbing story” (The San Diego Union-Tribune) of love, betrayal, history, ecology, greed—and gory murder.

“Stays with you long after the conventional thriller is forgotten.”—The Washington Post Book World

Liu Hulan, an inspector for China’s Ministry of Public Security, and her American husband, attorney David Stark, are traveling to one of the most beautiful places on earth: the Three Gorges, where China’s biggest engineering project since the building of the Great Wall is taking place.

Hulan is there to investigate the death of an American archaeologist found floating in the waters of the Yangzi River; David is trying to figure out who’s stealing artifacts from Site 518 and selling them on the international art market. Haunting the investigation is the possibility that an artifact has been found that could very well alter the history of civilization. Together, David and Hulan unearth more scandals, confront more murderers, and revive tragic memories that shake their tormented marriage to its core as they struggle to solve a mystery as big, unruly, and complex as China itself.