Detective Isaac Bell hero of The Chase and The Wrecker returns in a mission that pits him against German Japanese and British spies with the fate of the world at stake. Its 1908 and international tensions are mounting as the world plunges toward war. When a brilliant American battleship gun designer dies in a sensational apparent suicide the mans grief-stricken daughter turns to the legendary Van Dorn Detective Agency to clear her fathers name. Van Dorn puts his chief investigator on the case and Isaac Bell soon realizes that the clues point not to suicide but to murder.