I will never understand why murder is considered such a lowbrow speciality in Hollywood.

September, 1939, and the worries of war follow Josephine Tey to Hollywood, where a different sort of battle is raging on the set of Hitchcock's Rebecca.

Then a shocking act of violence reawakens the shadows of the past, with consequences on both sides of the Atlantic, and Josephine and DCI Archie Penrose find themselves on a trail leading back to the house that inspired a young Daphne du Maurier - a trail that echoes Rebecca's timeless themes of obsession, jealousy and murder.