Bess Crawford grew up in India, where her father was stationed on an army post. In 1908 Colonel Crawford's regiment discovered it had a murderer in its ranks, but the man was never brought to trial. In the eyes of many, it was a stain on the regimental honor.
Years later, serving as a nurse on the French battlefields during World War I, Bess learns from a dying Indian sergeant that the supposed murderer, Lieutenant Wade, could still be live - in fact, is serving at the front. How did he escape from India? What really happened in 1908 that drove a good officer to kill five people in cold blood?
When Bess looks for answers, she discovers that in the village where the first three murders occurred, people still think the killer was someone local, not Wade. Yet the present owner of the house where the people died is convinced that it was Wade, and that the colonel, Bess's father, helped him flee from the police. Bess is determined to find the man and let the courts decide. Then she stumbles on the horrific truth, something that even the famous writer Rudyard Kipling had kept secret all his life. What she learns will damn Wade even as it uncovers a brutal practice that could have been her own fate. How can facts lie?
