For kind, curious, philosophically minded Isabel Dalhousie, editor of the Review of Applied Ethics, getting through life with a clear conscience requires careful thought. And with the arrival of baby Charlie, not to mention a passionate relationship with his father Jamie, fourteen years her junior, Isabel enters deeper and rougher waters. Late motherhood is not the only challenge facing Isabel. There is her furiously disapproving niece Cat, and an attempted takeover of her beloved Review by the machiavellian Professor Dove. All the while, Isabel finds herself drawn into the story of a painter's mysterious death off the island of Jura.