In Twenty-four Hours in the Life of a Woman , the dramatic disappearance of the wife of a wealthy businessman from a small hotel on the French Riviera prompts a distinguished English widow to recount her fleeting encounter with a young aristocrat many years before in Monte Carlo. In The Royal Game, a tantalizing encounter takes place between the reigning world chess champion and an unknown passenger on a cruise ship bound for Buenos Aires. The stranger's diffident manner masks his extraordinary ability to challenge the grand master in a game of chess but also conceals his dark and damaged past, the horror of which emerges as the game unfolds.