Exiles is set in Paris in 1925. The protagonist, Daniel Levin, heads there to become a writer. He must solve a murder among the famous Lost Generation writers such as Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Gertrude Stein. He is aided by Sylvia Beach, the sharp-eyed and sharp-tongued owner of the famed bookstore Shakespeare and Company. Daniel must also deal with the hidden wounds he suffered as a soldier in the First World War and his fatal attraction to one of suspects in the murder.