Paris, 1939: the pavement rumbles with the footfall of marching Nazi soldiers along the Champs-Elysees. A young writer, recently arrived from Ireland to make his mark, smokes a last cigarette with his lover before the city they know is torn apart. As war takes hold, he will put his own life and that of his loved ones in mortal danger by joining the Resistance. A tale of spies and artists, deprivation, danger and passion, this is a story of life at the edges of human experience, and how one man came to translate it all into art.