Ottawa, January 2010. Canada's historic Dominion Archives. Junior archivist Jess Kendall is struggling to find her footing in her new role. Her colleagues undermine her, her boss hates her, and her only romantic prospect hides a whiskey bottle in his desk. Desperate to make a good impression, her luck begins to change when she discovers a series of mysterious letters chronicling life in Paris at the start of the Great War. Thinking she has landed her ticket to career advancement, she dives into research in Dominion's art vault, where she stumbles upon the body of one of her colleagues. As if finding a corpse isn't frightening enough, Jess soon notices she is being stalked by a menacing figure. It's only when she makes the connection between the letters, the murder, and a priceless Rembrandt that she realizes just how high the stakes are. Can she salvage her career, unravel a World War I–era mystery, shake off her ominous stalker, solve a murder, and—oh yeah—save her own life before it's too late?