In the spring of 1998, Bluma Lennon, a Cambridge academic who had just acquired a copy of Emily Dickinson's Poems from a second-hand bookshop in Soho, is knocked down and killed at a crossroad. Books change people's destinies. Herman Hesse's Demian introduced Hinduism to many thousands of young people; Hemingway converted them into sportsmen. Dumas' dashing musketeers turned the emotional lives of countless women readers upside down; others have been saved from suicide by a mere cookery manual. Bluma Lennon was one of literature's victims. Following Bluma's death, a male colleague discovers a copy of Conrad's The Shadow-Line in his late friend's house, which had been inscribed by Bluma with a mysterious dedication and had later been returned to her. He decides he must track down the identity of the original recipient. His quest takes him on a fascinating journey from Cambridge to Buenos Aires, and across the River Plate to Montevideo, as he hunts for clues to the identity and fate of an obscure but dedicated bibliophile.