This is a fast-paced thriller sim­i­lar to Dam­as­cus Gate and The Da Vin­ci Code. The sto­ry begins at Iraq’s Nation­al Muse­um in Bagh­dad in 2003, when it was being loot­ed for gold and antiq­ui­ties, then jumps five years to the sto­ry of Dana Lan­dau, a reporter on a dan­ger­ous assign­ment in Iraq dur­ing the gris­ly events of the time. She is soon mur­dered for pos­sess­ing an item she found stick­ing out of the sand, an old bat­tered leather pouch dec­o­rat­ed with an evil eye encas­ing a gold­en amulet, an orb dec­o­rat­ed with gem­stones form­ing the evil eye. Many polit­i­cal and reli­gious fac­tions in the U.S., Israel, and the Arab world are chas­ing after this rel­ic from Mesopotamia, known as the Eye of Dawn, and any­one stand­ing in their way is dis­pens­able. The authors use Dana’s sis­ter, Natal­ie, a muse­um cura­tor spe­cial­iz­ing in amulets and mag­ic, to explain the sig­nif­i­cance of the evil eye and the ham­sa or Hand of Fati­ma. Natal­ie and Jim D’Amato, an asso­ciate of Dana’s, join in a dead­ly race against time to deter­mine the impor­tance of the ancient object that led to Dana’s death.