The de Boer family are tobacco growers, working on terraces in the Veneto region of northern Italy. Life is hard, and the father, Augusto, occasionally supplements their income by smuggling tobacco across the border into Austria. Sometimes he takes his daughter Jole with him, and father and daughter journey together on the perilous route over the mountains. But Augusto mysteriously never returns from one of these trips, and Jole, driven to provide for her family, inherits her father's smuggling route. Accompanied only by her horse, Sansom, she must retrace the dangerous journey through the spectacular landscape, hoping for a good trade in exchange for her tobacco, but also to discover the truth behind her father's disappearance.
