Sally Lockhart has struck a man dead with just three words, sent to her in a message from her father just before he drowned in the South China Seas. But unfortunately, Sally has no idea what the words The Seven Blessings mean. Before long, she is drawn into a mystery filled with opium, secrets from her own past and, at the heart of it all, the Ruby of Agrapur.

Sally Lockhart crosses paths with the nefarious industrialist Axel Bellman, the richest and most powerful man in Europe.