It's 1933, and Ivor Castle, Oxford-educated and Jewish, arrives in Palestine, then under the British Mandate, to take up a position as assistant to the defense counsel in a sensational trial. He will help represent two men accused of murdering Haim Arlosoroff, a leader of the Jewish community in Palestine whose efforts to get Jews out of Hitler's Germany and into Palestine may have been controversial enough to get him killed. While preparing for the trial, Ivor, an innocent to the politics of the case, falls into bed and deeply in love with Tsiona, a free-spirited artist who may be a key witness. As Ivor travels between the crime scene in Tel Aviv and the mazelike streets of Jerusalem, between the mounting mysteries surrounding this notorious case and clandestine lovemaking in Tsiona's studio, he must discover where his heart lies.