The ermine cape covering the young bride's shoulders was so splendid that few of the spectators had ever seen anything like it. Everyone, or almost everyone, knew that it was a wedding present from the Soviet Trade Mission in London. It was not intended as homage to the bride's beauty, but as a reward for her young husband's outstanding service to the Soviet Union. The bride was Jessica, and her husband was John Fenton. They had been married in Westminster Abbey, intending to honeymoon in Sicily, until John suddenly changed their destination to Sofia, involving a distraught Jessica with Teddy, who had always seemed such a dear and devoted old friend until he turned into Fedor Fedorovich Surkov and became a good deal less friendly. Had it not been for Jessica's uncle Henry (the Einstein of chemistry) and the tall man with the green eyes in the Portobello Road, who knows what might have happened? What in fact did happen was enough to disconcert the bride. This is a delightful and funny novel - with plenty of suspence.