Jake Clio & Julius Hirsh & 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: Jakes wartime experiences which moved him to work as a doctor in the London slums; Clio & Grace flappers flitting through bohemian Fitzrovia to emerge as literary lion & 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 & bitter secrets hopeless love & careless betrayal & jealous loyalties more like fetters
- & above all the truth about Grace beautiful destructive siren at the centre of the circle.