Some people evidently found the humdrum pace of peacetime lacking in stimulation to satisfy their restless natures. Wartime had stretched their energies to such an exciting degree that anything that came with the peace was proving an anticlimax. They solved the deficiencies in their lives by turning against the way of life in their own country, while advocating an alternative they imagined could exist and consorting with others to promote their interests.

Such was the making of a cocktail of intrigue, betrayal, double-dealing, unusual relationships, murder, recidivism, and sexual adventurism mixed with loyalty, resolution of purpose, risk-taking, recantation, resourcefulness, and love that this novel explores. The unbelievable lengths adopted by people for the promotion of their evil, or at least unbecoming purposes, had to be met by ingenious measures to frustrate or to take advantage of them in an ongoing dialogue of counteraction.

Through it all, one valiant woman who struggled to hold her own amid the chaotic events concerned, succeeded in reaching something to her satisfaction, but it could have seemed a pyrrhic victory to those dispossessed.