London, September 1939. Within hours of Britain declaring war on Germany, Maisie is asked to investigate the murder of a Belgian refugee. Further deaths show that men who escaped the German invasion of 1914 are being targeted more than twenty years later, and the motive may lie in events their adopted country never fully understood.
The investigation unfolds as new Belgian refugees arrive, children are evacuated and Maisie’s family prepares for another war. To identify the killer, she must reconstruct loyalties formed under the first occupation of Belgium while confronting the fear that the violence and displacement of her nursing years are beginning again for a new generation.