President Roosevelt sends an unlikely new taskforce on a unique mission: librarians and microfilm specialists, trained in espionage, are deployed to neutral cities throughout Europe to work with a special branch of the Office of Strategic Services. By acquiring and scouring Axis publications, these librarians can gather information about troop location, weaponry, and military plans. Maria Alves, a microfilm expert working at the New York Public Library, is dispatched to Lisbon. Working in tandem with Tiago Soares, a Portuguese bookstore owner on a precarious mission of his own -- providing Jewish refugees with forged passports and visas -- Maria acquires vital information, including a directory of arms factories in Germany. Then Maria's superiors ask her to pose as a double agent, feeding misinformation to Lars Steiger, a wealthy Swiss banker and Nazi sympathizer who launders Hitler's gold. Gaining Lars's trust will bring Maria into the very heart of the Fuhrer's inner circle. And it will provide her with a chance to help steer the course of war, if she is willing to take risks as great as the possible rewards...