London, 1940, an age of darkness and terror. Hitler's armies re marching across Europe and North Africa, crushing all in their path and the fate of the British Empire, of Western civilization, hangs in the balance. Prime Minister Winston Churchill has set into motion a daring plan, a raid, code=named Praetorian that will send a tea of handpicked commandos into the desert to assassinate German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel. It is a mission doomed to failure. And for two men, and the woman they both love, the debacle will exact a bitter and terrible toll.
The friendship between Max Hood, hero of the empire who rode alongside T.E. Lawrence in Arabia, and the young American correspondent Rodger Godwin was forged in the 1920s in Paris,city of Hemingway, hot jazz and free love. It was there that they both met a girl alluring beyond her years, Pricilla DewBrittain, Cilla, who by 1940 would be a star of the British screen, Max Hod's wife and the secret love Godwli's life. Now Hood has been chosen to command the attack on Rommel's headquarters, and Godwin has been offered an exclusive on the story. At Churcill's personal request, the American accepts an active role in the assassination of the Desert Fox. But the Nazis lie in ambush. The plan has been betrayed.
Consumed by his desire for Cilla and his guilt over the outcome of Operation Praetorian, Godwin vow to track down the traitor and kill him. His search for revenge is driven by obsession, one that draws him into a labyrinth of political intrigue and private passions. Gradually Godwin begins to discover how little he really knew: the truth about Hood, about Cilla, about himself, about the secrets share between one man and another and between a man and a woman, about the primal urges that move through history, sex, power, and violence. ( )