This book introduces a new central character, fledgling war correspondent, Thomas Harrison. Readers of Robert Brightwell's earlier series may find descriptions of his grandfather familiar and certainly this Thomas has similar personality traits.

His first assignment sees him sent to Paris. After an idyllic start, things go downhill fast when he joins the French army on its march to Berlin in the Franco–Prussian war of 1870. He soon learns that despite advantages in weaponry, he has joined a force that can turn snatching defeat from the jaws of victory into an art form. Suffice to say that the citizens of Berlin evade trouble and Paris soon finds itself under threat.

Thomas is at the heart of a crucial period in French history that would later lead to two World Wars. He risks death by shelling, is sentenced to death in a bizarre kangaroo court and nearly freezes in a winter attack. Having fought with the French army, he later finds himself attacked by it, as he is drawn by a vision of beauty into a world of rebellion and revolution.