Dr. Shuri Emiliana Notari-Valmont has spent most of her life taking things apart to understand how they work. Machines are easy. Systems can be studied. Problems can be solved. People are more complicated. When a Formula One variety programme brings twenty drivers to Maison Céleste, the quiet bed-and-breakfast she runs with her grandmother, Shuri expects several chaotic days followed by a return to her ordinary life as a scientist and engineer. Instead, that strange week becomes the beginning of everything. The drivers leave on a Tuesday. Everything that happens afterward becomes everything after Tuesday.