The day after Nick Blessing watches a tumultuous performance of The Nutcracker danced by Gregor Uspenskii, the international star of New York's National Ballet, the Russian dancer disappears. One of the company's Directors, Hilda Battrick, calls on Nick, who is her godson and an academic historian of ballet, and together they set out to find him. Is he alive? Is he dead? Nick's trail leads him to see transcendent and breathtaking performances which reinforce the love of this most sublime and ephemeral of arts, as well as ludicrous beginners' classes and children's performances. Is the disappearance a hoax engineered by Uspenskii himself? Media hype to bolster the company's flagging publicity? A strategy by some of Hilda's enemies on the Board of Directors to re-mold National Ballet into a Modern Dance company? An international kidnap plot? The two must explore these possibilities and more as they follow a winding trail of hidden and half-hidden clues to a surprise conclusion.