In 1960s Nigeria, a country blighted by civil war, three lives intersect Ugwu, a boy from a poor village, works as a houseboy for a university lecturer Olanna, a young woman, has abandoned her life of privilege in Lagos, to live with her charismatic new lover, the professor The third is Richard, a shy Englishman in thrall to Olanna's enigmatic twin sister When the shocking horror of the war engulfs them, their loyalties are severely tested as they are pulled apart and thrown together in ways that none of them imagined