Lottie is marries to Tom Archer and they both work and live in Rome in Italy. She has an amazing job as an archivist and this enables you to understand why the novel is set both in the present time and the nineteen seventies. Lottie in her job gets to archive items that once belonged to Nina Lawrence who was murdered in the 1970's and gets drawn into her world and lifestyle. With the CIA, Communists , Facists and the chaos of the times in Italy you get drawn into the pages and tangled in a web of murder, intrigue, mystery, spying and lies to untangle a web of whodunnit and why. The plot is well set and the setting, well, you could almost be there in Rome with the brilliant descriptions of the places the author tells. The description of paintings is amazing and in your minds eye you can actually see what Lottie is looking at. That takes real skill for an author to accomplish.