In 1963 during the final months of the Kennedy administration, an unidentified woman is murdered on a crowded Cape Cod beach. The repercussions of the mysterious woman's death reach all the way to the heart of the US Government, threatening to destroy the reputation of the President and American prestige. Jimmy Flynn, a State Department employee becomes obsessed with discovering the identity of the dead woman and decides to investigate her murder. What he discovers has disastrous consequences for his own career. It exposes the dark side of American politics and the cold war in the early sixties, marking the end of innocence. The story is told against the background of real events dominating the political landscape as the Kennedy presidency comes to an end.