Editor Susan Ryeland is assigned to work on a continuation novel by Eliot Crace, which is a sequel to the popular Atticus Pund series. As Susan edits the manuscript, she discovers parallels between the story and Eliot's own family, particularly his belief that his grandmother, Miriam Crace, was murdered. The novel is a mystery-within-a-mystery, with Susan's present-day investigation intertwined with the fictional narrative of Pund solving a murder in the South of France.