Psychologically scarred by his time in military service, David Strachan lives retired, aboard his yacht in the South of France. A chance encounter with a beautiful American girl gives his life purpose until she is brutally murdered. Strachan's quest for revenge sees him drawn, bewildered, into a never before suspected world of magic and sorcery and power politics as he encounters a mystical order, the Shadowmasters.

Strachan becomes the hunted in a paranoid world where no one can be trusted and an ancient and terrible nemesis, the Templar- and his hideous accomplice the Torquemada - is unleashed to bring him down. Strachan must make his escape from this nightmare conspiracy involving all the resources of the Vatican and international Freemasonry - but the Shadowmasters have grandiose and terrifying plans for an unsuspecting world.