It's 1925 and the treasure-hunting scene is a man's world. Irene Blum is passed over for the curator position at a Seattle museum but is not willing to accept defeat. Irene comes into possession of a map believed to lead to a set of copper scrolls the tell the lost history of Cambodia's ancient Khmer civilization. Irene travels from Seattle to Shanghai to the Cambodian jungles in search of the lost scrolls and encounters several other adventurers along the way.