A young virtuoso violinist, Gideon Davis, suddenly loses not only his musical memory, but also the ability to play the instrument he mastered skillfully since the age of five. To cure himself of this amnesia, he must remember every event of his life that could have led to a fateful turn. And in his memories, suddenly, a woman’s sobbing intrudes, along with just one single name—Sonia.
On a rainy evening, a woman named Eugenia arrives in London for the arranged meeting. But on the road leading to the right house, a car that appeared out of nowhere knocks her down and kills her. In the course of the hunt for the criminal, Thomas Lynley and his assistants Barbara Havers and Winston Nkata are forced to return to a murder case that had been closed long ago.