Olura Manoli is a lovely creature, though perhaps a little foolish in her friendship with an African prime minister whom she accompanies to Spain without police protection.

Olura and the politician are followed by an Italian paparazzo hoping to catch glimpses of their indiscretion. But when he turns up dead in the couple's bathroom, it seems there is no one Olura can turn to for help but Philip Ardower, an English don and authority on the Basque language.

His help is certainly needed in the dangerous day to follow, when violent death and police suspicion dog the lovers along the rugged mountains and dark mine shafts of the fierce Biscay coast.