Early one Sunday, the town of Molliston wakes to the news that a young bride is dead.

The year is 1929. The Great War with Germany has been fought and won, but at an immense cost to the small community. Death is too familiar here. So many sons were lost. So many daughters would never be wives; so many grandchildren would never be born. Racial hatred is like a bushfire in the belly of some.

And the dead girl is found only yards from the property of old Joe Reichenberg, a German.