It’s 1939, and Mary, a young socialite, is determined to shock her blueblood political family by volunteering for the war effort. She is assigned as a teacher to children who were evacuated from London and have been rejected by the countryside because they are infirm, mentally disabled, or --- like Mary’s favorite student, Zachary --- have colored skin. Tom, an education administrator, is distraught when his best friend, Alastair, enlists. Alastair, an art restorer, has always seemed far removed from the violent life to which he has now condemned himself.

Kate and Zoe met at 19 when they both made the cut for the national training program in track cycling. They are built to exploit the barest physical and psychological edge over equally skilled rivals. Now at 32, the women are facing their last and biggest race: the 2012 Olympics. Each wants desperately to win gold, and each has more than a medal to lose.

Little Bee, a young Nigerian refugee, has just been released from the British immigration detention center where she's been held for the past two years. Alone in a foreign country, she seeks out the only English person she knows: a posh young mother and magazine editor with whom she shares a dark and tumultuous past.