When a brilliant emigré scientist is killed by a hit-and-run driver and a young woman's body is washed up in the Thames, Merlin and his team must investigate. The woman is an employee of the American embassy, whose ambassador at this time is Joseph Kennedy. DCI Merlin's investigation of diplomats at the embassy ruffles feathers at the foreign office - the American ambassador is a well-known supporter of appeasement, and many powerful and influential Britons favour the pursuit of a negotiated peace settlement with Hitler.

December 1938. Moscow. Josef Stalin has lost some gold. He is not a happy man. He asks his henchman, Beria, to track it down. September 1940. London. Above the city the Battle of Britain rages, and the bombs rain down. On the streets below, DCI Frank Merlin and his officers investigate the sudden disappearance of Polish RAF pilot Ziggy Kilinski while also battling an epidemic of looting unleashed by the chaos and destruction of the Blitz..

War rages across Europe. France is under the Nazi thumb. Britain has its back to the wall. In London, Scotland Yard detective Merlin investigates a series of disturbing events - a young girl killed in a botched abortion, a French emigre shot in a seedy Notting Hill flat, a mysterious letter written by a British officer gunned down in Crete. With action spanning Buenos Aires, New York, Cairo and occupied France, Merlin and his team are plunged into a dark world of espionage, murder, love and betrayal.

On a bright Sunday morning in Hawaii, Japanese planes swoop down and attack the US naval base at Pearl Harbour. America enters the war and Britain no longer stands alone against Hitler. The country can dare to hope again, although a long hard struggle still clearly lies ahead. Conditions on the home front remain bleak, and for Scotland Yard detective Frank Merlin, life is as arduous as ever.

The Second World War rages on, but Britain now faces the Nazi threat with America at its side. In a bombed-out London swarming with gangsters and spies, DCI Frank Merlin continues his battle against rampant wartime crime. A mangled body is found in the Thames just as some items of priceless art go mysteriously missing. What sinister connection links the two? Merlin and his team follow a twisting trail of secrets and lies as they investigate a baffling and deadly puzzle.