The whimsical paths of fate bring four people together in a deserted Italian villa on the eve of the end of World War II: a noble thief recruited by intelligence, a sapper-Sikh defusing bombs across picturesque Tuscany, a young Canadian nurse, and her charge—a man burned beyond recognition, the unknown one. It is he who tells readers the spellbinding story of his love for a married woman, thrown by fate deep into the heart of the Sahara Desert.