In 1882, young Lou Andreas-Salome, writer, future psychoanalyst and femme fatale, poses with Friedrich Nietzsche and Paul Rae for an unusual photograph. More than thirty years later, an art student from Vienna gives Frau Lou his drawing-interpretation of a picture that has gained scandalous fame. These days, the photo is repeated by a professional dominantrix mistress known as Chantal Deforge. When Chantal's body is found in the trunk of a stolen car at an airport in Oakland, California, Tess Berenson, a brilliant actress who moved to an Art Deco loft, who previously served as the home and workplace of Mrs. Tess's interest in Chantal's identity intensifies: she finds clues to the murder and more and more connections between her life and the life of the lady.