For one of Innisdale's residents, a priceless sonnet means poetic license to kill. . . . — Grace Hollister's stay in England's picturesque Lake District has proven doubly fruitful -- the American literary scholar just sold her first book, and her romance with charming antiques dealer and ex-jewel thief Peter Fox has begun a new chapter. Sorting through a hoard of papers found in an old farmhouse, Grace and Peter discover an old letter that refers to a lost Shelley sonnet, "Sate the Sphinx." Before Grace can start tracking down this poetic treasure, though, Peter's shady past rears its head -- a particularly ugly head, belonging to a menacing Turk who's eager to see Peter dead.

But there's plenty more trouble in store. Suddenly Grace and Peter are suspects in a murder investigation, and someone has tried his level best to kill her -- not once, but twice. The hieroglyphics are on the wall: unless Grace can unravel an inscrutable riddle and unearth the villain amid a cache of likely suspects, her story might be at an end. . . .