Selina Marsh-Hayden and Judith Delves, friends since their days at boarding school, are the working directors of Cafe de la Paix, a fashionable London restaurant. The two women couldn't be more different - Selina is glamorous and beautiful while Judith is hard working and plain - but together they have made Cafe de la Paix so popular that the partners recently opened a second restaurant. The success of the two restaurants has caught the attention of the Gemini Group, who want to buy them and add them to their own chain. Committed to what they started, Selina and Judith are adamant that they do not want to sell. The other shareholders, however, think differently. Selina's husband Richard is anxious to get the money that the sale would raise and Judith's lover Michael would like nothing more than for Judith to give up her work and devote herself to the running of his beloved country house. Deadlock is reached. Then Selina is murdered and everything changes. John McLeish is in charge of the case. His wife, the irrepressible Francesca Wilson, is an acquaintance of Judith Delves, and is drawn into the investigation through this connection. Suddenly, a fire, another attempted murder, and a possible suicide turn life at Cafe de la Paix to chaos.