Peter Daniels, a talented composer and pianist, is alone in the turbulent Paris of the 1950’s when Marie Gautier, an attractive translator and her charismatic boy friend, Jean-Claude Gubler, a radical young lawyer, befriend him. Working as he does in the demi-monde of illegal immigrants and left wing causes, Jean-Claude helps him find work replacing an American pianist who has broken his fingers in a fight in a jazz club. When the man is deported Peter moves into his flat and discovers a sheaf of unpublished but brilliant music. When Peter hears of the man’s suicide in an American jail, the music becomes both his treasure and his guilty secret. At the same time, the political and criminal forces that Jean-Claude opposes pursue them and destroy their relationship, forcing Peter to run for his emotional life back to a life with Hannah, his student girlfriend. Almost by accident, his illicit musical treasure trove makes him rich, but its source makes him secretive and this secrecy, along with his suspicious nature, threaten to break his marriage. Yet the music acts as a conduit to the past and try as he might, he cannot escape the spotlight it draws to him. Peter learns that just as events control his life, and his need for secrecy perverts it, and he worries that his past will destroy him before he can prove to himself his real worth as a musician.