It's 1916 and after two years of war in Europe, the whole world is being torn apart. Lovers are separated, families bereaved. And in some corners of the Empire, Britain's loyal subjects are gearing up for a war of their own.
In Darjeeling, master-spy Jack McColl is hunting down pro-independence terror cells and their German backers, and longing to be elsewhere. It's eight months since Caitlin Hanley, the love of his life, walked out, blaming him wrongly for the execution of her Fenian brother. When a fresh mission calls him away, Jack hopes he can move on.
Evading her grief, reporter Caitlin takes on assignment after assignment in the ravaged continent: meeting Lenin in Switzerland, visiting Casement's doomed rebel army in Berlin, smuggling herself onto the Western Front. Finally, forced to confront the facts behind her brother's death, she ends up in Dublin as an armed rebellion sweeps the city. Working to suppress it, meanwhile, is the man she can't stop loving. In a thrilling final denouement, the lovers come together. But can love unite what history is forcing apart?