Nate Wildenstern's brother has been killed, and the finger is pointed at him . . . After nearly two years, eighteen-year-old Nate returns home to the family empire ruled by his father - the ruthless Wildenstern Patriarch. But Nate's life is soon shattered by his brother's death, and the Rules of Ascension, allowing the assassination of one male family member by another, means he's being blamed. He knows that he is not the murderer, but who is? With the aid of his troublesome sister-in-law, Daisy, and his cousin Gerald, he means to find out. But when the victims of the family's tyrannical regime choose the funeral to seek their revenge, they accidentally uncover the bodies of some ancient Wildenstern ancestors, one of whom bears a Patriarch's ring. The lives of Nate and his family are about to take a strange and horrifying turn . . .

The young wife of the most powerful man in Ireland has been kidnapped, and Nate and Gerald must save her—from their own family, if necessary While her husband is away on business, Daisy Wildenstern buys a shape-shifting engimal from the charming adventurer Peter Barnum. The origins of the part-animal, part-machine being are a mystery. Life is cruel in Daisy’s family. Trained from childhood to be merciless predators, the Wildensterns are taught to trust no one—especially not their treacherous relatives. As long as their reputation stays intact, nothing is considered unacceptable on their quest for wealth and power. But Daisy belongs to a new generation of Wildensterns who are determined to defy their elders and live a more honorable life. When Daisy and the engimal go missing, it is of little surprise that most of her family doesn’t seem to care. It’s up to her brother-in-law, Nate, and his cousin Gerald to find Daisy and face her kidnapper, a ruthlessly cunning hunter. With relatives like these, who needs enemies?

If you’re head of the Wildenstern clan you can expect someone’ll try to kill you at some point or another. And usually it’s a member of your own family. But, right now, Berto Wildenstern, the new head of the Wildenstern family and business empire, has an even more pressing matter on his mind. Unfortunately, so does Nate, Berto’s brother and head of his personal security; local women seem to be spontaneously combusting and no one is quite sure why!

Nate Wildenstern has been on the run from his family for the past three years, but he is about to discover that the murderous Wildensterns cannot be hidden from forever... Megalomaniac and extremely dangerous cousin Gerald has been advancing his research into intelligent particles, with the intention of creating the ultimate engimal. Can Nate return to the Wildenstern estate incognito, and take his revenge upon Gerald?