"Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind."
Luke 14: 21.
Amelia Brown, Johanna's mother does not approve; to her Stanley is socially unacceptable - he is working class. She schemes to end the friendship. Amelia runs her own charitable trust, which receives millions of dollars in donations each year. Helping her in this venture is sister-in-law Matilda Brown, married to Jerry Brown, brother to deceased John, Amelia's husband.
Nine years previous, bandits in Cambodia ambushed John Brown's team. There was only one survivor.
After Stanley graduated, Amelia, still in contact with her husband's previous employer, The World Bank, finds him a position in - Cambodia, where he meets the survivor of the massacre, American Randy Page and his three wives and nine children. All the wives have lost limbs through land mines.
In Phnom Penh Stanley meets French doctor Emily Chaulieu - he cannot keep his eyes from her. A strange magnetic force draws them together.
After a frantic call to her daughter, Amelia says she has shattering news and will be home shortly. Amelia does not arrive, but is shot dead, execution style.
Inspector Noel Platt in charge of investigations becomes involved in the lives of Johanna and Little Sister who has come to Australia from Cambodia to study for a teaching career.
Johanna now heads her mother's trust helped by her Aunt Matilda who is treasurer. Johanna's life is threatened. Through the Amelia Brown Charitable Trust, Johanna unknowingly becomes involved in the evil worldwide trade of child trafficking.
Herman Page arrives from America, toreunite with his father whom he has not seem since the family break-up, when he was only five year old and his father served abroad. Innocently, Herman enters the realm of Russian mafia.