When the action begins, Scotland Yard detective Joe Sandilands is driving through the south of France in August of 1926 on an important errand: he is bringing his adolescentniece Dorcas Joliffe to a medieval castle where the girl’s eccentric father and a colorful assortment of artists have taken up temporary residence.

Almost immediately, a vandalized statue and the murder of a beautiful artist’s model, investigated by local police, ensnare Sandilands in a complicated mystery, one in which a dastardly villain lurks in the shadows.