Notting Hill, London. One May evening, seventeen-year-old Maggie Parker's mother walks out of their front door and doesn't return . . .

With her little brother in tow, desperate to find her mother, Maggie is drawn into a labyrinthine world of antiques and shadowy figures, far from the grand stucco terraces. There she befriends another young person living on their wits. But can he help solve the mystery of her mother's disappearance?

Twenty-one years later, in a Parisian apartment, Maggie's phone rings and her hard-won grown-up life shatters. While in London, the new owner of the Parker's old Notting Hill house is excavating a basement, unaware of what might lie beneath, and the clock starts ticking on buried secrets.