| In 1949, composer Roman Strauss is executed for the murder of his wife. In 1990s Los Angeles, a detective comes across a mute amnesiac woman who is somehow linked to the Strauss murder. |
| As a 13-year-old, fledgling writer Briony Tallis irrevocably changes the course of several lives when she accuses her older sister's lover of a crime he did not commit. |
| When a willful young man tries to venture beyond his sequestered Pennsylvania hamlet, his actions set off a chain of chilling incidents that will alter the community forever. |