Set during the occupation of France of 1940 – 44 during which time the author fought as a member of the resistance. The story follows her interrogation imprisonment and subsequent unexpected release by the German Nazi Officer Frank Van Heugen, the official interpreter in the German Kommandatur of Vichy France.

Marcelle Kellermann, a Parisian, interrupted her studies at the university in Clermont-Ferrand in France's Auvergne and joined the Resistance in 1942. After the war, she married a research physicist E W Kellermann in Manchester with whom she had three children. She completed her studies in England and eventually became a Senior Education Adviser in Yorkshire. She developed new ways of teaching foreign languages and published two books on the subject.

She has a commemoration medal for her Resistance work and was made a Chevalier Des Palmes Academiques for her language work by the French government.

She lives in Hampstead, London with her Husband.