Washington, DC, 2019: Laura Preston is a reclusive artist at odds with her older sister Bea as their elegant, formidable mother slowly slides into dementia. When a stranger contacts Laura claiming to be her brother who disappeared forty years earlier when the family lived in Bangkok, Laura ignores Bea's warnings of a scam and flies to Thailand to see if it can be true. Bangkok, 1972: Genevieve and Robert Preston live in a beautiful house behind a high wall, raising their three children with the help of a cadre of servants. Genevieve strives to create a semblance of the life they would have had at home in the US: ballet and riding classes for the children, impeccable dinner parties, a meticulously kept home. But Robert works for American intelligence, and as Genevieve finds herself drawn into a passionate affair with her husband's boss their serene household is vulnerable to unseen dangers in a rapidly changing world and a country they don't really understand.