Richard Cantrell is an American colonel living in Venice just after the Second World War. The fighting has left him scarred and embittered, a middle-aged man with a heart condition. It seems that only the love of Renata, a nineteen-year-old countess can save him.

But Cantrell is living in the shadow of war, every move he makes dictated by old battle instincts, and it is possible that for him the longed-for peace may have come too late.