In the near future, tech whiz Milo Warwick, an MIT grad student, is murdered, and the laptop containing his PhD thesis — a program and a hearing aid-like device that would think for you and recall your past if you couldn't — is missing.
His best friend, rising tennis star and American "prince" Alex Darlington suspects Chinese espionage and interjects himself into the investigation, led by his godfather, CIA China Bureau chief Mitch Abramson.
But the more immersed Alex becomes in the investigation, the more he is drawn into the past and the world of Tamara Chen, the cool Chinese cultural attaché whose staging of Giacomo Puccini's Turandot for China's One World Festival may hold the key to why the opera-crazed Milo died and the whereabouts and password of his computer.