Determined to rebuild her life following a suicide attempt, beautiful young American concert pianist Jessica Beaumont retreats to a 17th century cottage near the village of Kenwick, in rural England. She is embroiled in the murder investigation of a secretive neighbor who was hacked to death in his manor house with his own kitchen cleaver. Soon she becomes romantically entangled with one of the murder suspects, a handsome wealthy landowner, then with Scotland Yard's Mick Chandra.