Playboy novelist Sebastian Maure falls for Ghirlaine Bellamy, a product of a wealthy--and puritanical--society family, a girl so prim and proper that she's known as "The Blonde Saint." One night at a dinner party, she informs Maure that she is engaged to young Vincent Pamfort and is leaving for England the next day to marry him. Maure tricks her into meeting him on board a boat going to Palermo, and before they get there he suddenly grabs her and jumps overboard. They wind up in a fishing village on a small island and before long find themselves caught up in a cholera epidemic and a local criminal gang.—[email protected]