Three thousand years from now Earth is mostly desert and is little more than a quaint tourist destination for history buffs. Humans have spread out across the stars colonizing as they went with varied success and even survived first contact with an alien race and the war that followed. That means there are a lot of historic relics just waiting to be found by antiquarian Alex Benedict and his pilot Chase Kolpath. In addition to brokering deals for his wealthy clients Alex spends chasing down rumors of lost colonies, missing ships, and even people for profit. This doesn't make him popular with museums and those who feel he's nothing more than a graverobber. In the eight book series Alex and Chase have dealt with a wide variety of puzzles and frequently narrowly avoid dying because there is always someone who would prefer that those unsolved mysteries remain unsolved.