Timothy, a diffident young British academic, and Huma, a feisty young woman from India, have been invited to Kalapur, a remote and apparently peaceful Himalayan country, to advise on the preservation and editing of an important monastic chronicle. However, far from being a harmless academic project, they soon learn that the publication of a 'doctored' version of the chronicle is being used by the authoritarian regime in Kalapur to suppress knowledge of the past that threatens its own legitimacy.