Madame Landini's memoirs promised to be sensational. Rodney, who had captured them for his publishing house, and Oliver, his literary agent friend who would handle the business side of the book, could congratulate themselves on a brilliant coup.

But having covered her childhood as a Russian princess, her years of exile in Paris, the discovery of her phenomenal voice, the prima donna reached her first husband's death -- 'man overboard' -- and declared she would write no more. Rodney suspected there was more to this than a display of temperament. He scented mystery and was right