Verona North had seemed the perfect daughter. She'd surprised her friends by leaving her home to attend art school in London, but they'd thought it was a normal, youthful rebellion which wouldn't last very long. However, when she did return home in the summer of 1914, it was to die--pregnant and with her body full of morphine.

Her cousin, Nell Bray, isn't wholly convinced she committed suicide and is positive she was not an addict. Unable to suppress her curiosity, Nell discovers that her cousin was leading a double life--on the one hand, consorting with a group of Bohemian artists and anarchists, and on the other, collecting information on the suspected "enemies of the state" for the secret service. But where did Verona's loyalty lie? With her family, her friends or her paymasters? What did she know that caused one of them to kill her, and who was the father of her child?