In the spring of 1678 Catherwood Lyte, newly arrived in America, loses her way on the path home with her one-year-old daughter Elisabeth, and becomes hopelessly lost in the forests of the New World.

Hollywood sleuth Toby Peters finds himself working to unmask a murderer when he accepts the task of trying to convince the beautiful, but lead-footed Luna Martin and her ex-mobster boyfriend to quit harrassing Fred Astaire for dance lessons.

Scotland Yard Inspector Ian Rutledge is sent on a diplomatic mission to Cornwall to review the evidence in the deaths of three members of the same family, but his interest is sparked when he realizes that one of the dead is O.A. Manning, a reclusive poet whose writings comforted him while fighting in the trenches of World War I.

Belle is put on the wrong train by her stepbrother and her life becomes a series of foster homes and orphanages until she finally ends up in Hollywood. All the time, her mother and stepbrother spend thirty years searching for her.

Bow Street Superintendent Thomas Pitt is called to the scene when one of London's back alley prostitutes is found murdered and there is evidence left at the scene implicating the son of a wealthy, powerful gentleman.