After moving to France, Tabitha Knight has a new friend in fellow expat and Cordon Bleu student Julia Child, whose culinary tips can come in quite handy. But something's cooking in postwar Paris, and it isn't just cheese souffle...
Tabitha has enjoyed an entertaining afternoon in Julia's kitchen, but her return home is a bit jarring. As she arrives at her grandfather's rue de l'Universitemansion, a woman bursts out the door babbling about messages from spirits and a warning Grand-pere must heed. Oncle Rafe angrily sends the woman on her way, and neither man will answer Tabitha's questions.
It's not the last she sees of the mysterious visitor. While she's on a date that evening, she's accosted by her again-and learns that Madame Vierca is a medium who claims to have visions of a dark fate that awaits Grand-pere and Oncle Rafe. The very next night, Tabitha's messieurs host a soiree at their new restaurant, inviting fellow Resistance fighters from the war known as the Nine Bluets. To commemorate the work of the Resistance network, the vase on the dinner table sports nine of the pretty blue flowers.
But shortly after the revelers leave the restaurant, one of Grand-pere's old friends is found dead on the street . . . and one of the nine flowers is missing from the vase. When a second member of the Nine Bluets is found poisoned the next day, and a bluet flower is left with the body, Tabitha cannot ignore Madame Vierca's frightening predictions about her dear messieurs. She has no choice but to share her suspicions and fears with the enigmatic and unruffled Inspecteur Merveille.
Tabitha soon finds herself caught up in an investigation that takes her and Merveille to the seediest, most dangerous parts of the Left Bank-home of strange, fantastical legends, disquieting events, and unusual people. As she and Merveille desperately try to find a killer, they know they don't have much time before the rest of the Nine Bluets are targeted . . . including Grand-pere and Oncle Rafe.
