1913. Junior British consular official Scampion arrives in sun-baked Naples - banished from Florence, following his involvement with D'Annunzio: poet, Nationalist and revolutionary. He brings the new craze sweeping Italy: bicycling. But walking home one day after a bicycle race, he's stabbed to death. Is Scampion's murder linked to the race? Neapolitans, being great gamblers, will bet on anything, including a bicycle race. And where there is gambling there is also the Camorra, the Neapolitan secret society. But the Foreign Office, with information that the murder might be linked to high politics in Rome, send their man Seymour to investigate...