First-century Rome is not the quiet, orderly city that it pretends to be. Over on the Quirinal Hill, a naive young girl has died, and there's a suggestion that she was poisoned by a love potion. Looking into the matter, Flavia Albia, daughter of Marcus Didius Falco, soon discovers the young girl was a handful, and her so-called friends were not as friendly as they should have been. When a friend of Albia's is murdered, things take an even more serious turn.