Alix Rebick is a survivor of the sexual revolution, but at forty-nine is resigned to spending the rest of her life alone Returning to the bedside of her dying mother, Alix receives a final message that forces her to uncover family secrets that lie in pre-war Dresden Joseph Shields, an American architect, is in a war - with Liverpool's underworld, with his wife back in Chicago who has left him and with memories of his time as a combat soldier He is not interested in an affair with the woman who unlocks the city's secrets for him and is consumed with desire