When Brodie Moncur is offered a job in Paris, he seizes the chance to flee Edinburgh and his tyrannical clergyman father, and begin a wildly different chapter in his life. In Paris, a fateful encounter with a famous pianist abruptly alters his path--and irrevocably changes his future as it ignites an obsessive love affair with the beautiful Russian soprano, Lika Blum. From Paris to St. Petersburg and back to Edinburgh, Brodie cannot free himself of his love for Lika--nor of its increasingly dangerous consequences. A tale of dizzying passion and brutal revenge; of artistic endeavor and the illusions it can create; of the possibilities that life offers and the cruel speed with which they can be snatched away.