Sex and drugs and le jazz hot! It's 1923, and it's Paris. Phil Beaumont, the resourceful Pinkerton, and Jane Turner, ladies' paid companion turned Pinkerton "op", are here to investigate the death of Richard Forsythe, a rich American publisher. The Paris cops say it was a suicide pact -- Forsythe and his German mistress Sabine were found dead in a locked room -- but they're not revealing everything they know.

In their search for the truth, Phil and Jane move from saloon to salon, from sewers and catacombs to elegant cafes and night spots. Along the way, they run into people like Hemingway and Gertrude Stein. They meet a young Englishwoman who writes mystery novels and a French police inspector who knows a great recipe for coq-au-vin. Phil is romanced by a Merry Widow, and Jane is pursued by an American adolescent, a fisherman, and a fabulously wealthy French count and his sister. They find their own relationship, and themselves, in peril as they learn more about the mysterious Forsythe and the even more mysterious Sabine. Dark forces are aligned against them, enemies are closing in, and it looks like they may never leave the City of Light alive.