It is 1908, and international tensions are mounting as the world plunges toward war. When a brilliant American battleship-gun designer dies in a sensational apparent suicide, the man's grief-stricken daughter turns to the legendary Van Dorn Detective Agency to clear her father's name. Van Dorn puts his chief investigator on the case, and Isaac Bell soon realizes that the clues point not to suicide, but to murder. And when more suspicious deaths follow, it becomes clear that someone - an elusive spy - is orchestrating the destruction of America's brightest technological minds... and the murders all connect to a top-secret project called Hull 44.