The glamorous Phryne Fisher, accompanied by her maid Dot, decides to travel to the country by train to collect her new Hispano-Suiza motor car. The charm of rail travel soon evaporates though, when Phryne unexpectedly has to use her trusty pearl-handled pistol to save a young woman's life and solve the disappearance of her fellow passenger's mother. Her train trip derailed by a gruesome murder, Phryne speeds home in her Hispano-Suiza to her new abode in St Kilda where she works through the clues until she discovers her unassuming murderer.