Six years after the Great War, Jean McAuliffe, an independent young woman, determines to find the truth of her mother, who abandoned Jean as a baby. Leaving her native Dublin after quitting her job as a nanny, Jean journeys to the small English village of St. Cyril, the last place anyone saw or heard of her mother. It is there that she applies for a job at White Isle Asylum for the Mentally Ill to support herself during her search. The last thing she expects is to be drawn into the world of psychological care, and to be drawn into the lives of two enigmatic men.

But when one of the patients assigned to Jean's care, a shell-shocked soldier with no memory of his past, vanishes, not only her job, but her dreams of finding her mother, are threatened. When patient Edmund Howard vanishes, Jean is held responsible, and her only chance of keeping her job lies with the hope of finding Howard in time.

However, the search for Howard turns nearly impossible when it is discovered that he does not exist under his recorded name, and he carries a deadly secret with him. When a brutal murder follows his disappearance, he is naturally the first suspect. But Jean refuses to believe Howard capable of murder, and she takes upon herself to find him, and unveil his secret, before the killer finds another victim.