This is the first in a series of novels involving espionage, love and intrigue moving between England and America during the American Civil War. The plot weaves between the quiet cathedral town of Hereford, the streets and taverns of Victorian London , the heaving emigrant port of Liverpool, New York immersed in war and commerce and the draft riots , southern plantations , and Richmond forever engulfed with the threat of invasion, politics and espionage. The drama involves real events and real people such as Allan Pinkerton the founder of the detective agency, President Lincoln, General Robert E. Lee and the famous spies -Rose Greenhow, Belle Boyd and Elizabeth Van Lew.

Richard Clarke a young English law student runs away from a claustrophobic life in his father's solicitor's office to enlist in the Union Army. Early on arrival in New York he is befriended by an influential family who realise his Englishness and his youth would make him useful for espionage work in Richmond, Virginia.

Kate Turner is the daughter of a plantation owning family in South Carolina who (out of keeping with the period) has been brought up as a competent business woman and is left to run the plantation when her father and brothers leave for war. The Confederate government calls her to Richmond and she also becomes involved in espionage.

The story embraces slavery, the emancipation movement, military action, and a daring escape from the infamous Libby Prison.