Art gallery curator Giselle Villande and her husband, an antique dealer from Menton in the south of France, find themselves drawn into an insidious web of poisoning and murder motivated by financial greed and sexual jealousy. Nebulous tendrils of evil draw them still further to Paris and Honfleur then finally to Giselle's isolated family home on the wild and beautiful Northumbrian coast. In this sexually-charged labyrinthine conspiracy a plot is afoot to undermine and ultimately destroy Giselle's family.