Gerald Samper an effete Englishman lives on a hilltop in Tuscany. He is a ghostwriter for celebrities & a foodie whose weird tastes include Mussels in Chocolate & Garlic & Fernet Branca Ice Cream. His idyll is shattered by the arrival of Marta a vulgar woman from a former Soviet republic now run by gangsters notably male members of her family. She is a composer in a neo-folk style who claims to be writing a score for a trendy Italian film director. The neighbours lives disastrously intertwine. The entourages of the rock star & the director come & go; mysterious black helicopters bring news of mayhem in Voynova Martas homeland; & along the way the English obsession with Tuscany is satirized mercilessly.