Foreign Service Officer Henry Scruggs us loaned to Smithsonian to head SI foreign affairs office; he assists with exhibit on K. V. Chandra, Indian philosopher. Scruggs has relationship with designer Violet Strauss who disappears with an artifact. 

Calista Jacobs and her son return to solve the murder of a children's book author Norman Petrakis, with the help of Smithsonian archeologist Archie Baldwin.  

Navajo Tribal Police Lt. Joe Leaphorn & Officer Jim Chee work on cases of murder and graverobbing that intertwine. 

Milanese friends invent the Knights Templar conspiracy as joke, but it becomes real. 

FBI Agent Clarice Starling works with notorious criminal Hannibal Lecter to capture serial killer Buffalo Bill. 

Harvard astrophysicist Tom Jacobs is sent to do research in Nevada but is killed. 

Historian Dr. Lewis Tunney uncovered an international art scandal, but then is murdered at a Smithsonian gala. 

Detective Robert LeClercq must stop a killer on murder spree in city of Vancouver. 

Sarah Woodruff, a disgraced woman, is abandoned by married French naval officer. 

Story of the Pollit family and their dysfunctional relationships.