As revealed in The Knowledge of Water, a great flood washed through the streets in Paris 1910, exposing secrets thought to be sufficiently buried: the death of a singer, an art forgery, matters of the heart. The complex web of stories then tells a larger tale, that of the lives of Parisians in the time. The characters find their passion in art and murder and the beauty of the flood. This novel follows Sarah Smith's acclaimed The Vanished Child and rings with the same mix of suspense, history and wonder.