This third book of Anne Perry's World War I series begins in the trenches, where in March of 1916, Protestant chaplain Joseph Reavley is wounded. With his shrapnel-peppered broken arm and a shattered leg, he is sent back to Cambridge for surgery and a hosiptal stay. During his recuperation period at the Reavley family home in Cambridgeshire, he is thrust into investigating a murder case that places national security in peril.

Meanwhile, the Germans are advancing along the Somme - and England is losing many ships to German U-boats...