On his return to Britain after the First World War, Henry Whitaker begins his career as a film-maker - first as assistant to the legendary director Arthur Maxted, and then as one of the country's foremost documentary-makers. But all the while he yearns to create a feature film of his own - a work of art that will give his life meaning.

Interwoven with Henry's narrative is the present-day quest of his daughter, Miranda, to understand what happened to her mother, a refugee Henry met and married in Germany at the end of the war. Did Henry - as his daughter has always supposed - drive Romana to suicide? Or do Miranda's half-repressed childhood memories hint at an altogether more complex and extraordinary truth?