This is the final volume in David Brierley's Velvet Revolution trilogy that comprises ON LEAVING A PRAGUE WINDOW and THE HORIZONTAL WOMAN. Set in Romania in the days of Ceaucescu, Liliana works as a maid at the Hotel Bucharest where a group of party grandees are enjoying a birthday party. Liliana is presented as the dessert, naked on a trolley, and then raped by the evil Mincu. Years later, after the fall of the 'Big C' she encounters Mincu again at an arms fair where she is working as a translator. Later Royston Cox, an ageing British spy of the old school, is in Bucharest to investigate a plot to supply chemical weapons to the Serbs, organised by Mincu, now one of the unseen rulers of Romania. Cox is informed of someone with a grudge against Mincu, a girl called Liliana. This configuration of characters leads to betrayal, revenge and dark secrets, choreographed by a thriller writer of rare intelligence and subtlety.