Emil Beckman a wounded German soldier, is experiencing the extremes of battle fatigue during the last days of World War II. He's presented with the opportunity to take the identity of another man, a British officer, Lieutenant James Howard. The decision is to change his life in ways that he couldn't imagine.

When the wartime diaries of a deceased Chaplain surface unexpectedly in the hands of a blackmailer revealing Beckman's real identity, Beckman has only one option – murder - which unleashes the suppressed symptoms of a high-functioning sociopath. Several murders later Beckman comes to believe he's invulnerable.

Until Samantha Weller an investigative journalist, starts to unravel the story behind the latest murder and at the same time brings together Beckman's family who he thought had perished in the bombing of Cologne into an accelerating climax of justice, family reunion, new love and a new beginning.