Kit Livingstone encounters his great-grandfather in a deserted London alley. Surprisingly as Cosimo long since disappeared thought dead. He urges Kit to join him on a quest through time & space in search of a strange map made by another intrepid explorer. Fearful of being trapped in the intersections between worlds & times this traveller from an early age had devised an intricate code a roadmap of symbols & tattooed it on his own skin. Now the race is on to find the Skin Map. Against his better judgement & rationality it is drawn into the hunt. But Kit & Cosimo are not the only ones searching for it. & their murderous rivals will stop at nothing to unlock its secrets...a prize beyond imagining. Taking in its sweep London Oxford Prague China & Egypt between the 17th & 21st centuries The Skin map is the first of the five volume Bright Empires series: a multi-dimensional time-bending fantasy of the highest order from a master storyteller.