A scandalous divorce, a suspicious drowning, and a corpse in a palace—welcome to the Gilded Cage.

When wealthy divorcée Mrs. Breese sails to Havana with her entourage of family, friends, and a handsome young actor, a press agent finds himself caught in a web of jealousy and deceit. After a dramatic suicide attempt aboard the yacht, the party arrives at Mrs. Breese's winter palace, only to find themselves trapped in a murder investigation. With fifteen servants in the house and only four potential suspects, the case seems simple—until a brilliant Russian detective reveals that everyone present was connected to an unsolved murder six years earlier in Riga.

As Detective Ben Smith and the enigmatic Boris Sergeivitch Perutkin untangle layers of deception, they discover that this crime's roots run deeper than anyone imagined.