Andre is in America to visit his brother and sister-in-law. She introduces him to 1920s New York society, where the constant teas, dinners and parties soon bore him. He steals a fast car and escapes the city, crashing into a horse and rider. Not the young man Andre first thinks but Marilyn, a woman infatuated with the bootlegger MacRae. Marilyn’s father, a corrupt ex-Mayor, hates MacRae, while MacRae in turn is in love with Sheila, a woman from Andre’s past he knows well. What can possibly go wrong?

Michael Arlen established his reputation with a best-seller The Green Hat in 1924. He wrote several more books, with this 1931 one originally published under the misleading title Men Dislike Women: A Romance. The title now better reflects the novel Arlen wrote.