Halifax, Nova Scotia, 1938. Orphaned at the age of nine by a Zeppelin crash, DeFoe Russet grew up in a hotel under the care of his magnetic Uncle Edward. Now thirty, DeFoe works with Edward as a guard in Halifax's three-room Glace Museum. By night, DeFoe spends his time trying to keep the affection of Imogen Linny, the young caretaker of the small Jewish cemetery. When the Dutch painting Jewess on a Street in Amsterdam arrives at the museum, Imogen becomes obsessed and abandons her life in favour of the ennobled one she imagines for her subject - even though being a Jew in Amsterdam is becoming more and more perilous as the clouds of World War II begin to gather.