The Golden Doves

Set in 1952 with flashbacks to World War II, the novel follows two former French Resistance spies and Ravensbrück concentration camp survivors, Josie Anderson and Arlette LaRue, as they pursue intertwined missions that draw them into a conspiracy involving fugitive Nazis, a lethal virus, and the son Arlette lost during the war.

Josie, a Jewish American lieutenant in the U.S. Army Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC), works at Fort Bliss, Texas, vetting former Nazi scientists brought to the United States through Operation Paperclip, a secret program recruiting Hitler's researchers for the American military. She is haunted by memories of her mother, Lylou, a famous singer known as "the Jewish Nightingale," who was killed at Ravensbrück. Her boss, Major Karl Crowell, assigns her a classified mission: to find and capture Dr. Snow, a virologist from Ravensbrück who headed the camp's worst experiments, selected prisoners for death, and oversaw the Kinderzimmer, an experimental ward where babies were deliberately starved. Karl reveals that Snow personally selected Josie's mother for death. Josie accepts the assignment, is promoted to captain, and is paired with case officer Johann Vitner.

In Paris, Arlette, a waitress at a café run by fellow survivors, still searches for her son Willie, who was taken from her at Ravensbrück seven years earlier. She carries a "grief box" of his mementos. A lawyer named Luc Minau tells her his grandmother, Danae Minau, runs Hope Home, a foundation in French Guiana that reunites war orphans with biological parents. At Luc's office, Arlette recognizes objects that may have belonged to Willie, including a monogrammed baby blanket. When her late aunt's sister threatens to reopen a police investigation into the aunt's disappearance, Arlette, who is responsible for the aunt's death, decides to leave for French Guiana with Luc immediately.

Flashbacks reveal the women's wartime history. In 1943, sixteen-year-old Arlette became pregnant by Gunther Wagner, a young German soldier, and was sent to a Lebensborn home, a Nazi facility for producing racially "pure" children. A resistance nurse named Thérèse smuggled Arlette and the newborn out before Willie could be given to an SS family. Thérèse then recruited both Arlette and Josie, a seventeen-year-old American stranded in occupied Paris with her mother and grandmother, into the British underground. Working as a radio operator and courier team, the two became so effective that London dubbed them the Golden Doves. Their intelligence helped cancel a secret visit by Heinrich Himmler and contributed to D-Day preparations. When their tailor-shop contacts were executed by the Gestapo and Arlette's aunt Henriette discovered their operation and threatened to betray them, Arlette killed Henriette with a brass dove sculpture. They disposed of the body in the Seine. Shortly after, a street urchin named Fleur ran into the apartment fleeing Gestapo agents who followed her inside, and all four were arrested and sent to Ravensbrück.

At the camp, Arlette and Willie were placed in the Kinderzimmer while Josie bunked with Ariana, an Italian prisoner. Josie's mother arrived separately and was placed in a Jewish block, where Dr. Snow subjected her to viral experiments and confiscated her gold acorn necklace, a family heirloom. Josie confided in Ariana about being a Dove and about the aunt's murder. Ariana betrayed this information to Herr Oberg, a Gestapo official, who offered a deal: Josie would write to her diplomat father requesting an American visa and immunity for Oberg in exchange for the women's release. By the time Josie's father arranged their freedom, the Kinderzimmer children had been taken, Arlette had been mauled by guard dogs while searching for Willie, and Josie had witnessed her mother being shot during a selection. Josie and Arlette were liberated, but they left without Willie, Fleur, or Lylou.

In the 1952 storyline, Josie's hunt for Snow takes her across Europe. At Landsberg Prison, she interviews Herta Oberheuser, a convicted Nazi doctor, who confirms that the guard Dorothea Binz took Willie from the Kinderzimmer, suggesting he survived, and directs Josie toward a Vatican official in Rome who helped Nazis escape to South America. In Rome, a bishop reveals the scope of the ratline, a network through which thousands of Nazis received Vatican-assisted passage. Returning to the hotel, Josie finds Johann murdered by electrocution. Aaron Salinger, an Israeli Mossad agent she met in Paris, helps her escape.

Meanwhile, Arlette arrives at Cove House, Danae's cliffside estate in French Guiana, and visits Camp Hope, the adjacent children's camp run by Father Peter, a hostile figure who claims to be a Swiss priest. Among the boys, Arlette connects with Thomas, a nine-year-old who resembles Gunther in appearance and mannerisms but has recurring fevers and stomach pain. She discovers that Dr. Gregor Ebner, the physician who ran the Lebensborn home where Willie was born, is living in Cayenne and consorting with Father Peter. With Dr. Kena Bondi, a World Health Organization (WHO) epidemiologist investigating mysterious deaths in Maroon communities, descendants of escaped enslaved people living in the interior, Arlette finds a hidden compound where girls are tattooed and forcibly impregnated. Luc proposes marriage at a public fundraiser; since he controls her access to Thomas and the camp, Arlette feels compelled to accept.

Josie deciphers drawings by Fleur, now institutionalized and unable to speak, matching them to a travel poster of Cayenne found in Snow's Ravensbrück office. She flies to French Guiana and reunites with Arlette. Together they break into Ebner's office and photograph files linking Father Peter and Ebner to the virus program, overhearing a phone call that references a collaborator at Fort Bliss, suggesting a mole in Karl's operation. Bondi analyzes Thomas's blood and determines his immune system generates an extraordinary antibody response to the virus. The operation has been harvesting Thomas's blood to manufacture vaccines while using Maroon boys, who have no immunity, as test subjects. Bondi concludes they are developing a germ bomb.

Josie warns Karl of a mole via radio, but Karl, himself the collaborator, sends Josie's rival Tony P. with agents to arrest Father Peter, the wrong target. Tony drugs Josie so she oversleeps and misses the operation. Aaron reveals that Father Peter was merely a decoy; the real Snow will arrive at the helipad the next day. Josie watches the Hope Home commercial and realizes the "youth ambassador" program, which sends vaccinated children to visit world leaders, is the delivery mechanism for the germ bomb.

That morning, Luc confesses the full plot to Arlette: He and Danae manufactured the Hope Home search to lure Arlette to French Guiana because they needed a devoted mother to keep Thomas, their essential antibody source, alive and cooperative. Originally funded by Karl, they now plan to sell the weapon to Russia. At the helipad, Josie confronts Danae, who drops her grandmotherly facade and reveals herself as Dr. Snow, taunting Josie with Lylou's gold acorn necklace. Aaron's Israeli agents emerge from a waiting helicopter, and Claudio, Luc's driver, is revealed as an undercover agent working for Aaron. Rather than face Israeli justice, Danae falls backward off the cliff to her death. Luc is taken into custody and later tried in Jerusalem on 12 counts of crimes against humanity.

Arlette returns to Paris with Thomas, who thrives once the blood harvesting stops. She buys the café, rescues Fleur from the asylum, and the three form a family. Josie takes over Karl's position at Fort Bliss after an investigation is opened into his collusion. Aaron recovers Lylou's acorn necklace from the water below the cliff; inside the secret compartment, Josie finds a silver button she had accused her mother of losing, hidden there as a surprise. In the epilogue, both women receive deliveries of gardenias, Danae's signature flower, with a threatening note, suggesting Dr. Snow may have survived the fall.