Jeremy Wheale's well-ordered life is torn apart when his brother is murdered by a mob hit man, whose bait was a family heirloom - a sixteenth-century gold tray. The trail takes Wheale from Devon to Mexico and the wild tropical rain forests of Yucatan. In dense jungle, he helps two archaeologists locate the rest of a fabled hoard of gold - treasure from Uaxuanoc, the centuries-old lost city of the Mayas. But his brother's enemies are on Wheale's trail, and with them are the Chicleros, a vicious band of convict mercenaries.