This story is set mainly in Ireland, although much of the novel takes place at Scroope Manor in Dorsetshire, the ancestral home of the ageing Earl of Scroope.

When matchmaker Kate Begley's husband, U.S. intelligence officer Charles Miller disappears, she enlists Ben MacCarthy's help in finding him. They travel to France and Germany, where they stumble across the German army about to launch its last-gasp assault in the Ardennes and end up questioning the wisdom of remaining neutral in the face of overwhelming evil.

Tells the story of Syracuse, a simple fisherman who catches a beautiful and mysterious woman in his trawler nets. The woman seems to be dead, but then she comes alive before Syracuse's eyes and he thinks he may be seeing things. However, with the help of his ailing yet irrepressible daughter, Annie, he comes to believe that the fantastical might be possible and that the woman (Ondine) might be a myth come true.