Sam Jasper is not a "scream-and-wet-pants" kind of girl.
When she finds a set of strange clues hidden in a powder compact left by her great-grandfather, John Jasper, who was an archaeologist in China just before World War 2, she leaps at the chance to find his diary, which she hopes will lead to treasure.
With the help of local boy Kai, Sam becomes involved in a helter-skelter action adventure but she begins to realize someone else is also after the diary, and he will stop at nothing to find it first.
For there is a lot more at stake than treasure, and Sam is in great danger as she uncovers treachery and crimes that go back to 1937, when Japan invaded Shanghai in the run-up to the Second World War.
Sam's story is accompanied by John Jasper's journal entries as he documents the last hurrah of Shanghai's fabulous International Settlement before life changes forever on the day of the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941. And both Sam and John must face betrayal and peril as their stories connect across the years.
Travel with Sam across China to exotic places including the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven and the Great Wall as she tries to unravel the clues to the diary and find out why it's so important that someone would kill for it!
"I couldn't put it down!" (reader aged 48)
"I had to keep reading to find out what happened next!" (reader aged 10)
"History without the boring bits!" (reader aged 17)