Nobody on the ferry was looking at the island. That was the first strange thing.

The narrator - a man paid to notice what people don't look at - arrives at Sant'Orso on the last boat of the season: a rock of an island with one village, one villa, one lighthouse stair, and a handful of people who all seem to be waiting for the weather to change. Then someone dies, and the sea closes in. With no way off until the next boat, Sergeant Kral begins his questions, and every guest in the house - the host, the couples, the writer, the woman with the ginger tea - becomes both suspect and witness.

Everyone on Sant'Orso is telling the truth about something. The trick is finding out what they're lying about.

A classic closed-circle mystery in the tradition of the great island whodunits: one storm, one house, one killer, and a narrator who notices the one detail everyone else stepped over.