Gibraltar, 1937. After years away from England and devastating personal loss, Maisie leaves a homeward-bound ship because she is not ready to return. The British garrison is crowded with agents, refugees and observers of the Spanish Civil War, and a photographer is murdered soon after her arrival.
Maisie’s inquiry draws her into the victim’s work documenting the conflict across the border and into competing British and foreign intelligence interests on the Rock. Still uncertain of her own purpose, she must recover the discipline of investigation while deciding whether the photographer died because of what he recorded, whom he helped or the political loyalties attributed to him.