Olga Arbyelina, a White Russian princess living quietly with her adolescent son in a small French town, is a relative newcomer to the Russian community there. Intriguingly little is known about her when, in the summer of 1947, she is suspected of murdering a fellow emigre, only for the case to be dropped. As the story of the preceding year unfolds, a picture forms of her upbringing in Russia followed by her exile and marriage in France, and the details of a darker, hidden crime begin to emerge, encircling the narrative in an ever-tightening snare.