Kate Blackwell is one of the richest and most powerful women in the world. She is an enigma, a woman surrounded by a thousand unanswered questions.

Her father was a diamond prospector who struck it rich beyond dreams. Her mother was the daughter of a crooked Afrikaaner merchant. Her very conception was an act of hate-filled vengeance.

At the extravagant celebrations of her ninetieth birthday, there are toasts from a Supreme Court judge and a telegram from the White House.

And for Kate there are ghosts. Ghosts of absent friends and absent enemies. Ghosts from a life of blackmail and deceit and murder.Ghosts from an empire spawned by naked ambition...