An exquisite and harrowing new novel about ordinary lives swept up in the chaos of history, as the shadow of WWII touches Halifax. Defoe Russet, orphaned at age nine by a Zeppelin crash, has grown up in the care of his magnetic uncle Edward. Now twenty-five, he works as a guard at the Glace Museum in Halifax. But, caught up in a tormenting love affair with Imogen Linny, the caretaker of the small Jewish cemetery, he finds himself unexpectedly catapulted into the horrors of war.