Montreal-born thriller writer Piers Le Gris is living a comfortable life of exile in Avignon, France, doted on by a beautiful older French woman, Nelly Reboul, his landlady. When seventeen-year-old Magali moves into the ancient mansion, her vitality, curiosity and tempestuous involvement with a young Arab poet draws all three into perilous intrigue. Magali’s presence jars open the door to a long-forgotten love affair in Nelly’s past, and forces Piers to do to battle with yearnings he has carefully smothered under a monkish routine. Drawn outside the claustrophobic confines of rue des Griffons, he finds himself dangerously entangled in the crosscurrents of desire, swept up by the lives of three compelling women.