Somebody has been copying Philip Broomby's music... but it happened before he even wrote it.
Philip Broomby would give anything to be a successful composer. Unfortunately, in the musical cul-de-sac of the 1980s his dream seems more than a little archaic. Yet things finally seem to be going right for him when he is commissioned to write a full-blown symphony.
The opportunity quickly turns into a nightmare when Philip discovers a recording of his symphony – made before he had even started writing it. Has Philip unknowingly transcribed a piece of music he has already heard? Is his composition teacher actually a time-travelling music thief with a Swiss alter ego in the 1940s? Or is the whole thing just a horrible coincidence?
The truth lies over 100 years and 700 miles away and Philip finds himself on a historical, geographical and emotional journey on which he glimpses the extent to which his life is wrapped up in the past… and discovers just how far he’ll go to bury it.