Emily Snow is hired by Regents University to organize and process the papers of Raymond West, a famous Pulitzer Prize-winning author who has been short-listed for the Nobel. The previous archivist, Nadia Fontaine, was an apparent drowning victim. Emily's job comes with its inherent pressures. West's wife, Elizabeth, is an heiress who's about to donate $25 million to the Memorial Library. The inaugural event in a few months will be a gala for the Who's Who of San Diego to celebrate the unveiling of the Raymond West Collection and the financial gift that made it all possible. As Emily discovers that items have gone missing from the collection, she gains access to the highly restricted archives, which contain a Pandora;s Box of erotically and intellectually charged correspondence between Raymond West and the late Nadia Fontaine. Was Nadia's death really an accident? -- adapted from jacket