A beautiful Wedgwood biscuit barrel is part of a deceased estate. When the sealed top is removed by the new owner a wad of 100-year-old documents are found inside. One of the documents is a posthumous letter from an airman in the Royal Flying Corps in First World War France and sets off an investigation, the explosive results of which are revealed in the book. The book is set in 1914 Rhodesia and then moves to France and the killing fields of the Western Front.