Sydney, Australia, 1933: Wealthy impresario and amateur Egyptologist Roland Cuthbert Barry is murdered on his 60th birthday, and everyone attending the evening’s celebrations is a suspect. Detective Senior Sergeant Harold Chesterfield of Sydney Central Police has been sent by Chief Inspector Ron Thompson to Barry Island on the Hawkesbury River and the rambling sandstone house of the wealthy Barry family. Thompson is a long-time friend of Roland Barry, who has confided in him about threatening notes he has received, suggesting he will be held to account for past actions. Harold Chesterfield discovers a curious cast of characters at Barry Island: a long-suffering wife and an ambitious young mistress; a Russian ballet dancer who isn’t what he seems; Roland’s daughter and her lover, an Egyptian woman; the family doctor with a secret past; Roland’s two troubled sons; and the evening’s entertainment, a psychic medium, who, from the moment she steps foot on Barry Island, declares something terrible will happen.