Though Johansens's story is driven more by solving a mystery and discovering information than it is by character development, her characters are more than just plot devices. The protagonist, Bess Grady, is a compassionate, caring young woman who has seen a great deal of the horrors the world has to offer. She is beginning to think she may need a change in her profession or in her place in the world. She is upset by the killings at the orphanage, but it is a personal horror, since she was considering adopting a young child killed there. Her desire to bring the events she witnesses to the public eye is frustrated when her film is confiscated during her stay in the hospital in Croatia, recovering from what she believes to be a bout of the flu. When she finds that the killings in the orphanage and the mass death...