Having lost her mother in a car crash at the age of 4, Blue van der Meer is raised by her eccentric Swiss father, who has made his way in America as a leading economist. Following his wife's death, Gareth van der Meer becomes a travelling academic, taking Blue from town to town while maintaining a constant regime designed to educate, cultivate and mould young Blue. For her final year, her father suspends their nomadic lifestyle, in order to send Blue to an elite prep school. Here joins a circle of protégés under the guidance of Hannah, one of the school's teachers. There follows a story of mysterious disappearances and a violent and unexplained death, which is to haunt the group - and Blue particularly, who searches for the truth behind the murder - for some time to come.