London, 1945. The capital is the backdrop for many struggling with demons unleashed by the recent World War. Maisie Dobbs is drawn into the story of a group of squatters, including a demobbed soldier, who have set up camp in the Belgravia mansion of her former in-laws Lord and Lady Julian Compton. Her attempt to help brings to light a decades-old mystery that concerns her first husband, James Compton, who was killed while flying an experimental fighter aircraft. The deeply personal inquiry leads her to a second man, who is fighting the darkness of his own conscience following a secret mission. It is an investigation that will challenge so much of what Maisie understands about her life and forces her to look at the past and the many mirrors that could have been reflecting something other than she had come to believe was truth.