Rima Lanisell is a young woman at a loose end, following the death of her father. Rima has a history of losing things: keys, sunglasses, family members. Now she has come to the coast of California to stay with her godmother, Addison Early, who once knew Rima's father well. Perhaps too well. Rima is on a mission to discover just what that relationship was really about.

Addison is a best-selling mystery writer, secretive and feisty. Over the years, she has tried to protect her work and her privacy as her fans have become ever more intrusive: in the age of the internet, those fans have begun to take over the plot lines and the life of her famous fictional detective. For many, he is more real than Addison herself.

As Rima becomes enmeshed in the life of Addison's eccentric household the mysteries surrounding her seem more complex. Who is the obsessive fan who stole a small object from Addison's house? Why did Addison name a murderer after Rima's father? And what is Addison's connection to a mysterious death that occurred twenty years before?