1926: Joe Sandilands is back from India enjoying the frantic pleasures of Jazz Age London. But post-war gaiety soon wears off when Scotland Yard ask Joe to conduct a swift enquiry. Dame Beatrice Joliffe, a much-respected member of the British establishment, has been bludgeoned to death in her suite at the Ritz. It seems that death dogged the footsteps of Dame Beatrice and Joe finds himself investigating the apparent suicides of three young women who had been close to her. When his superiors unexpectedly tell him to close the case and surrender the file, Joe is forced to battle on alone against pressure from unseen government forces, through to a shattering solution.
