Book excerpt: A spellbinding story of love, war, and betrayal. Peter Sokol, an artist living in San Diego, is haunted by his past. In 1943, Captain Sokol is a surgeon in the U.S. Marines stationed in Auckland, New Zealand, where he and his longtime nemesis have fallen in love with the same beautiful and enigmatic woman, Emily Walters. Dismissive of Emily's suspiciously British mother and violent brother, the two vie for her hand. When Emily's brother is discovered murdered, Sokol is the prime suspect. As he fights to prove his innocence, he finds that the woman he loves is not who she seems, and that the blood of another might be on his hands.