In 1940, Sally Bowles, that spirited character from Christopher Isherwood's Goodbye to Berlin, decides to leave her baby daughter with her parents in the country and return to London. There, despite the Blitz, she is determined to live life to the full. Moreover, she wants to find the love of her life, the elusive Theo.

Despite Theo's absence, Sally cuts swathes across the cold, charmless, and secretive trio of Briggs, Pym, and Bruno. In the late 1990s, young American academic Greg Peters is trying to piece together the missing links of Sally's life for a new biography.

He contacts Bruno in London and finds a man tauntingly evasive, knowledgeable but unwilling to comment. But eventually Bruno thaws, leading Greg on a fascinating and tantalizing trail of snippets, facts, and fantasies about the real Sally Bowles.