In October 1918, the Allies are winning the war in Europe, but the Spanish flu is rampant at home. In Chicago, Emily's husband is fighting the virus at Cook County Hospital. Their daughter has dropped her social ambitions to study sculpture while their doctor son has returned from France injured in body and spirit. Emily is shocked to learn her children were friends of the victim in a scandalous murder. The wife of a notorious gambling king shot her young lover. When Emily follows them to the Dil Pickle club she enters an avant-garde world of artists and writers biding their time for their lives to return to normal. When a man is found shot there, Emily works with Detective Whitbread prove her children are not involved in the death.

The story describes ravages of the epidemic as well as cameos of historical characters including Ben Hecht, Sherwood Anderson and Ben Reitman. Discussions of public health officials of the time sound familiar after the coronavirus outbreak in our time. War, plague and the avant-garde world of 1918 provide the backdrop for continuing story of Emily's family.