It is 1956, and Lizzy is working in Soho when Peace comes to stay. Peace is a beautiful sixteen-year-old part-Chinese girl, the daughter – it turns out – of her employer Bandy Bunion’s estranged sister. Peace has been at a boarding school in the country – but, tired of feeling lonely and of being bullied, she has run away, and does not intend to go back.
Lizzy, who lives above the nightclub run by Bandy and Sugarplum Flaherty, offers to take her in; she lost her own daughter – Rosie’s best friend – to leukaemia two years previously and she feels a special bond with Peace. Life, Lizzy also feels, has been rather too quiet recently; but things are about to change dramatically. Bandy has got a new man in her life – a crook for certain, Lizzy thinks, especially when Bandy’s valuables start to go missing. And Lizzy’s got a new man too. TC is Rosie’s Dad and everyone’s favourite policeman. But is he interested in her?
But when Peace goes missing a second time, and no one knows where she’s gone, it looks as though there’s only one thing to do. Lizzy asks TC to help her find Peace, and the first place they must visit is the seedy dock area in Limehouse. The home of the Chinese community, it’s a very dangerous place indeed . . .