rose fell's friends think she's taking a big risk when she leaves the security of home and career to move to the beautiful but isolated village of grosso, near genoa. but after a year of emotional turmoil rose no longer has any ties back home, and she relishes the challenges of a new start. making a home, however, in the ravishing, haunted landscape of italy's riviera coast turns our to be lonelier than rose had anticipated. and it is only when she is asked to write a profile on one of her reclusive neighbours, the once-glamorous film star elvira vitale, that rose feels her new life is really beginning. but when a young girl's body is found on the local beach, and the following day elvira's hard-working cleaner, ania, goes missing, rose finds herself embroiled in a murder investigation that threatens the idyll she has worked so hard to establish.