Josephine Tey travels to Cornwall in the summer of 1935 to stay with friends at their country estate and work on her second novel just as Detective Inspector Archie Penrose arrives to attend the funeral of a family friend, but when a mysterious murder occurs in the local theater house, Josephine and Archie begin to work together to solve the mystery.

It's summer, 1936. The writer, Josephine Tey, joins her friends in the holiday village of Portmeirion to celebrate her fortieth birthday. Alfred Hitchcock and his wife, Alma Reville, are there to sign a deal to film Josephine's novel, "A Shilling for Candles," and Hitchcock has one or two tricks up his sleeve to keep the holiday party entertained.

"In the summer of 1915, the sudden death of a young girl brings grief and notoriety to Charleston Farmhouse on the Sussex Downs. Years later, Josephine Tey returns to the same house--now much changed--and remembers the two women with whom she once lodged as a young teacher during the Great War. As past and present collide, with murders decades apart, Josephine is forced to face the possibility that the scandal which threatened to destroy those women's...

"During the mass evacuation from London in September 1939, a little girl vanishes without a trace and Josephine struggles with the chaos and uncertainty of war"--