LIA GORDON IS A WAR REFUGEE living with her Canadian uncle and his wife in Arvida, an Aluminum Company of Canada town in northern Quebec. Aluminum was a strategic war material in World War II that was essential in the construction of airplanes. Although Lia appears to be a strong, independent young woman, her life is dominated by an abiding hatred of the Nazis who have probably made her an orphan. On a July day in 1941 Lia is walking her dog, Duke, along the banks of the Saguenay River when she witnesses a kayak hit a submerged rock. When it breaks up the two occupants are swept into the current but Lia is able to rescue one of the kayakers, Willie. She retrieves and pockets a small waterproof packet that spills from Willie's knapsack when she drags him across the sand. The second kayacker has disappeared, presumably down the river. As Willie revives he mutters in German and Lia immediately becomes suspicious. When Willie revovers and realizes Lia knows he is German he recognizes her as a threat to his mission, a mission to foment a strike
at the Arvida smelter. If the aluminum freezes in the pots production will be held up for months. When Willie attacks Lia Duke intervenes and Lia escapes into the Saguenay, letting the strong current take her downstream until she is able to swim to the shore. Lia is unable to convince her uncle, the plant manager, that the two kayakers are German saboteurs, but her
tennis partner, Phil, a visiting engineer from the Aluminum Company of America, uses his American resources to help her. His dissuasion of revenge falls on Lia's deaf ears and a cycle of vengeance begins that takes her to Montreal and finally Lamoureux and Fort Saskatchewan in rural Alberta.