In a great English house, a young woman offers herself to one of the most powerful and influential figures in the land - but this is no ordinary seduction. She plans to ensure his death. On holiday in France, Professor Tom Wilde discovers his brilliant student Julian Marfield, who disappeared two years earlier to join the International Brigades in Spain, in the Le Vernet concentration camp in the foothills of the Pyrenees. Wilde secures his release just as German tanks roll into Poland. Meanwhile, a U-boat sinks the liner Athenia in the Atlantic with many casualties, including Americans, onboard. Goebbels claims Churchill put a bomb in the ship to blame Germany and to lure America into the war. As the various strands of an international conspiracy begin to unwind, Tom Wilde will find himself in great personal danger.