An artistic sixteen-year-old is forcefully separated from her family by Soviet soldiers and sent to one of Stalin's work camps in Siberia. Despite suffering through cruel and harsh conditions, Lina finds refuge in the connections she makes with other deportees and in the art she continues to create to document her experiences.

"When single mother Collette McVeigh ... is arrested for her part in an aborted IRA plot in London, an MI5 officer ... offers her a choice: lose everything and go to prison or return to Belfast to spy on her own family. With her son's life in her hands, Collette chooses to place her trust in the MI5 and return home. When her brothers' secret operation is ambushed, suspicions of an informant are raised and Collette finds both herself and her family...

At their lakeside vacation home, Ann, George and their son have unexpected visitors: two well-spoken, well-bred young men wearing polite smiles and preppy sportswear. The visitors want to play a game. "You bet that you'll be alive tomorrow at 9:00, and we bet that you'll be dead. OK?" As the terrorized family fights to survive, each plan is thwarted, each option closed, each hour closer to what could be the last.