Dot unfolded the note. He says that his married couple will look after the divine Miss Fisher...I'll leave out a bit...their name is Johnson and they seem very reliable. Phryne got the door open at last. She stepped into the hall. I think he was mistaken about that, she commented.

Traveling at high speed in her beloved Hispano-Suiza with her maid and trusted companion Dot, her two adoptive daughters Jane and Ruth, and their dog Molly, Phryne Fisher is off to Queenscliff. She'd promised everyone a nice holiday by the sea with absolutely no murders, but when they arrive at their rented accommodation that doesn't seem likely at all.

An empty house, a gang of teenage louts, a fisherboy saved, and a missing butler and his wife seem to lead inexorably toward a hunt for buried treasure by the sea. Phryne knows to what depths people will sink for greed, but with a glass of champagne in one hand and a pearl-handled Beretta in the other, no one is getting past her.