British-trained Norwegian intelligence agent Tore Haugland has enough worries when he is sent to a tiny fishing hamlet on the west coast of Norway to set up a line to receive arms and agents from England via the "Shetland Bus." Posing as a deaf fisherman, his mission is complicated when he falls in love with Anna Fromme, the German widow of an old family friend. Accused of betraying her husband, she has a small daughter and secrets of her own. Though the Allies have liberated France and the Netherlands, the most zealous of the Nazis hang on in Norway, sending out agents to disembowel local resistance groups. If Haugland fails it could not only cost him his life, but those of the fishermen who have joined him. When Haugland is betrayed and left for dead, he will not only have to find the one who betrayed him and destroyed his network, but also prove that the one he loved was not the informer.