Forced to leave San Francisco after the devastating earthquake of 1906, Fremont Jones is finally willing to follow her heart - and her elusive suitor Michael Archer - to the bohemian beach community of Carmel-by-the-Sea. But she finds Michael utterly changed and, apparently, otherwise engaged. Heartbroken, confused - and furious - Fremont accepts a position as temporary keeper of the Point Pinos lighthouse, determined to carry on her typewriting business part-time and nurse her wounds in solitude. Barely has she arrived, however, when the body of an unidentified woman washes up virtually at her feet, and Fremont is off on a new and ultimately life-threatening quest: to identify the dead woman.