This is the story of the original Jack Riordan, uncle of the Jack Riordan of Drowning in Her Eyes and The House that Jack Built. He grows up in a sleepy country town and joins the air force during the Second World War. He trains and travels to England, where he becomes a bomber pilot. He is reported missing on operations, and presumed dead, his body never recovered. But the story is not that simple. He is shot down into the North Sea and he and two of his crew survive to be rescued by Dutch fishermen. They get him ashore and feed them into the escape network for downed fliers. There Jack meets Dominique, a French girl who is part of the resistance. They fall in love and stay together, fighting the Germans, until Jack is taken prisoner by the SS just before the liberation of Paris. He does not know that Dominique has fallen pregnant and he never knows, for he is executed by the Germans. After the war, Dominique searches for him without success. Finally, after her death, their daughter, Vivienne, becomes obsessed with finding her lost fathers last resting place. After much research she does find him. He had been buried wearing another man's identity discs. Vivienne travels to Australia to find her unknown relatives, and in the process she finds a love of her own.
