Jake, Clio and Julius Hirsh and their cousin, Lady Grace Stretton, formed a charmed circle in those lost innocent days before the Great War - united against the world. Old now, Clio recounts their story for her biographer: Jake's wartime experiences, which moved him to work as a doctor in the London slums; Clio and Grace, flappers flitting through bohemian Fitzrovia to emerge as literary lion and pioneering Member of Parliament respectively; the music that drowned for Julius the crash of jackboots in thirties Berlin. But for herself, Clio remembers a different story - desperate lies and bitter secrets, hopeless love and careless betrayal, and jealous loyalties more like fetters - and above all, the truth about Grace, beautiful, destructive siren at the centre of the circle.