Roberta Ellison lives in Madeira where she had settled with her late husband after being crippled in a motor accident. Domestic help was easy to come by and the climate was ideal.

Then her sister Camilla comes to the island to help her to find a companion, bringing problems of her own with her, problems that at first seem trivial, but that soon involve the sisters in a violent and mystifying spiral of events. As more newcomers appear, so Camilla's history begins to unfold and it emerges that all is not as it seems . . . and then murder strikes.