Darby Littleton is a literary biographer, well known for her work on authors as diverse as Charles Dickens and Mark Twain. But when she is approached to write a biography of Angela Ashton, a late-in-life success as a novelist, Darby moves onto unknown terrain. For one thing, she usually doesn't write about living authors. For another, Angela's biography is the first where someone is paying Darby's publisher to have it written. And, as Darby does her research, traveling to the UK, US, Canada and Vietnam, contacting Angela's former college chums, ex-colleagues at the UK foreign office, and familly members in Canada and the UK, she begins to find more questions than answers. There are so many gaps in Angela's history.

Nor can Darby rely on the novelist herself to answer her questions; Angela has been committed to care, suffering from early-onset dementia. But that becomes another piece of tthe puzzle Darby tries to solve. Is Angela really suffering from dementia? Or was she 'helped along' by foul play? As the months go by, and Darby works on completing her manuscript, she finds that the Russians may have played an outsized role in Angela's life. And, as becomes plainer every day, the Russians don't want Angela's story told, meaning Darby herself is in danger.