Emma Wexford and Tim Anderson have known each other since they were children, going to elementary school together in Washington State at the beginning of the 20th century. Though his rough-and-tumble upbringing puts him in a different class from her more genteel family, they become friends and then much more, eventually falling in love and marrying. When they travel to Germany on their honeymoon, they find themselves in a situation for which they are not prepared, and their trip takes a dark turn. Tim gets into a dispute with a group of Nazi soldiers, and both he and his wife are arrested, then shanghaied and shipped to a secret island, where Hauptleute Marcel Wolff is running a work camp populated almost entirely by Jews-a test run, he claims, for a much larger program to come. Separated from each other, Tim and Emma must struggle to survive and find a way to escape. They communicate as much as possible through a hole in the brick wall separating them, but he is often trapped in a workhouse and she soon finds herself the subject of the Hauptleute's interest. Emma questions if she should pretend to return the Hauptleute's affections, in the hope that it will earn her privileges, or even her freedom. Worrying more about his wife than himself, Tim devises a carefully thought-out, but untested, plan for escape that may only get one of them out alive.