British journalist Ian Graham hunts the Huntress, a Nazi war criminal who killed his younger brother Sebastian in cold blood.

Jordan McBride photographs her father's girlfriend Anneliese at dinner and discovers a disturbing, cruel expression on her face in the developed print.

Ian recruits American partner Tony Rodomovsky in Cologne and introduces Nina, a Soviet woman, as his estranged wife.

Nina Markova's alcoholic father tries to drown her in Lake Baikal, and she vows to devote herself to the opposite of drowning.

Tony bribes the Huntress's mother in Salzburg and learns her daughter Lorelei sends letters from a Boston antiques shop.

Jordan confronts her father Daniel with photographic evidence of Anneliese's Nazi ties at the family's Thanksgiving dinner.

Jordan is told at a bridal boutique that her father has been killed in a shooting accident and suspects foul play.

Ian, Tony, and Nina board a ship bound for Boston to hunt down the Huntress at McBride's Antiques.

Ian and Nina interrogate Nazi document forger Kolb in his apartment and discover he is far more afraid of the Huntress than of them.

Jordan discovers a file in Tony's apartment containing a photograph that identifies her stepmother as the war criminal Lorelei Vogt.

The Huntress traps Jordan in the darkroom at gunpoint and confesses to killing Daniel McBride and Ruth's biological mother.

Ian's team rescues Jordan from the darkroom and determines the Huntress has fled with Ruth to the Selkie Lake cabin.

Nina persuades Garrett to lend his plane and makes a terrifying engineless descent to land the group at Selkie Lake.

Nina emerges from the lake streaked with blood, impersonating the rusalka of the Huntress's nightmares and causing her to finally surrender.

Ian and Nina sail the Huntress to Austria to face trial for war crimes while Tony and Jordan stay in Boston to care for Ruth.

The novel opens with Ian Graham's relentless quest to find and bring to justice the Huntress, the Nazi war criminal who murdered his brother Sebastian. While Ian assembles his team, Jordan McBride grows suspicious of her father's mysterious Austrian girlfriend Anneliese, capturing a cruel expression on film that does not match the woman's gentle manner. After a Thanksgiving confrontation and Daniel McBride's suspicious death in a shooting accident, the two storylines collide when Jordan discovers a file in Tony's apartment revealing that Anneliese is the Huntress herself. Racing to Selkie Lake, the group rescues Ruth and corners the fugitive, with Nina's rusalka emergence from the water finally breaking the woman's resolve to keep running. The Huntress is taken by ship to Austria to face trial for war crimes, and the survivors piece together a new life in Boston built on justice and truth.

The core hunt for a Nazi war criminal from Boston to Austria.

The Huntress flees Austria at the war's end and vows to escape before she can be tried for her crimes.

Jordan's father Daniel announces his intention to marry the quiet Austrian widow Anneliese Weber, alarming his daughter.

Jordan discovers a Nazi Iron Cross medal wrapped into Anneliese's wedding bouquet and feels a rush of confusion and horror.

Ian and Tony interview Austrian women in Altaussee who remember the Huntress as a perfectly pleasant and harmless neighbor.

Nina meets Marina Raskova in Moscow and is accepted into the all-female Zhukovsky Air Force Academy.

Nina and fellow pilot Yelena Vetsina become lovers while flying night bombing missions together in their plane, the Rusalka.

Ian loses his temper and fires Tony after a heated argument about whether to pursue the Huntress to America.

At Daniel's funeral, Jordan meets Tony at the antiques shop for the first time and hires him as a new clerk.

Tony announces to Ian and Nina that he has successfully secured a cover job inside McBride's Antiques.

Anneliese tells Jordan the antiques shop belongs to her and encourages her to abandon it and pursue photography in New York.

Jordan tells Garrett she wants to postpone the wedding, and the two admit they are not in love and end their engagement.

Tony accompanies Jordan to photograph a ballet rehearsal and the two share their first romantic kiss.

Jordan and Tony consummate their relationship together in Jordan's darkroom.

Jordan discovers Anneliese and Kolb arguing in German and learns Anneliese cashed out the shop's bank account and lied about her travel plans.

Tony stays in Boston with Jordan rather than sailing to Austria and takes the photograph that becomes her professional byline portrait.

The novel's secondary threads trace the Huntress's escape from postwar Austria, her calculated infiltration of the McBride family, and the gradual formation of the alliance that will eventually expose her. As the Huntress settles into Boston life under a false name, Ian's team forms in Europe and maneuvers itself into position inside McBride's Antiques. Jordan cycles through engagement, grief, and growing affection for both Tony and her stepmother, her instincts perpetually at war with her desire to belong to a loving family. Tony's charm-based intelligence work inside the shop and Jordan's sharpening suspicions edge the investigation steadily forward, even as Anneliese works to steer Jordan out of Boston entirely. By the novel's close, both Jordan and Tony reject the postwar domestic ideal in favor of careers built on documenting truth and preserving the stories of those who suffered.

The alliances formed and secrets uncovered in the shadow of the main hunt.

Nina encounters a man with a downed plane near Lake Baikal and decides she too will become a pilot.

When the Soviet Union goes to war with Germany, Nina buys a one-way ticket to Moscow to join the fight.

Ruth insists to Jordan that her real mother played violin, directly contradicting Anneliese's claim she never played any instrument.

Ian learns that Nina passed herself off as Polish to avoid deportation and that she told him Sebastian died a hero.

At Selkie Lake, Jordan observes Anneliese's cold, calculating expression when Ruth reacts with visible trauma at the sight of blood.

Marina Raskova dies and Nina is summoned to meet Stalin, silently considering drawing her razor and killing him.

Nina's father is denounced as an Enemy of the State, and Nina begs Yelena to flee West with her, but Yelena refuses to abandon her homeland.

Facing arrest, Nina burns the Rusalka and sets off through the Polish forest, where she encounters the British prisoner Sebastian Graham.

Nina kills a German soldier with her razor and rescues Sebastian Graham and another British prisoner of war in western Poland.

Sebastian and Nina accept the Huntress's offer of food and shelter at her lakeside home, despite Nina's growing suspicion of the woman.

Nina confesses to Ian on a Florida beach that she is bisexual and never recovered from Yelena's rejection, and Ian agrees to divorce.

Nina reveals the full truth of how she witnessed the Huntress murder Sebastian, fought her, left a scar on her back, and jumped into the lake to survive.

Ian whistles the violin lullaby he secretly taught Ruth to signal her to run toward safety at the Selkie Lake cabin.

The Huntress attempts to shoot herself rather than be taken prisoner, but Nina intercepts the weapon before she can fire.

Nina agrees to delay the divorce and remain with Ian, while Jordan's photographic essay on the Huntress makes her internationally famous.

This pool traces the pivotal revelations and personal turning points that drive the novel's deeper story, beginning with Nina's defining choice to become a pilot and ending with her decision to remain with Ian. Nina's wartime arc is shaped by the loss of Yelena, the discovery of her own rusalka identity, and the violent lakeside encounter with the Huntress that sets the long hunt in motion. Jordan's photographic eye and Ruth's suppressed memories act as crucial instruments of truth throughout the investigation, slowly dismantling the Huntress's carefully constructed cover. The final confrontation at Selkie Lake draws on everything the characters have revealed about themselves, from Nina's fearsome water-born emergence to Ian's unwavering pursuit of justice for his brother. In the aftermath, each character makes a choice shaped by the full cost of the hunt, finding unexpected paths to love, purpose, and remembrance.