It's a foggy evening in 1940 when the headlights of Ted and Lily Carrington's van pick out the figure of a girl standing, barefoot and in an expensive party dress, by the side of the road. She has no memory of who she is, nor of anything about her life - so when ensuing investigations fail to reveal any clues to the girl's identity, Ted and Lily adopt her and name her Shona.

Now in her teens, Shona is determined to fullfil two goals. One is to scoop a big story to prove to her editor at the Globe that women, too, can be successful journalists. The other is to track down her real identity and her father whom, she is convinced, would not have abandoned her without good cause.

During some investigative rsearch, she unearths several old newspaper articles and photographs of a currently eminent public figure. Disturbed by them, she digs deeper, increasingly certain that he somehow figured in her past. As she launches out on a voyage of discovery it inexorably leads her into a dangerous world whose inhabitants will stop at nothing to prevent the secrets of the past from being revealed..