'I would read in the next day's newspaper that the death of Marie Prasquier had been officially pronounced a suicide. The fact that Marie's motives for ending her own life were discovered by the authorities so very quickly after her death - enabling them to rule out the possibility of murder - greatly pleased the police, the press, the public, and, as you can well imagine, her killer.' In the year 1940, in San Francisco, jazz saxophonist Ray Sherwood has arrived in town on tour with the Jack Donovan Orchestra and plenty of bad memories. But when he meets two beautiful women on the same day, Ray is shaken out of his stupor. One of the women, Gail, wants his help in orchestrating her avant-garde composition Swing Around the Sun, the other will plunge to her death just moments after speaking to him. It soon turns out that there is more to Gail's motivation than meets the eye, and Ray is led along a trail of music, murder and espionage - all set against the ominous backdrop of America preparing for war.