August 1944: Seventeen-year-old Phee Swenson's pastor father insists she join him on a tour of Camp Algona, a prisoner of war camp that opened last spring just west of their hometown. She would much rather stay home and practice for her upcoming piano recital. Surely that's more important than traipsing around with a bunch of Nazi POWs who are living behind barbed wire, isn't it? At the end of their tour, Phee is invited to try out a new piano in the camp theater. As they enter the lobby, they hear someone playing that piano inside. It's one of the POWs. Moments later, she meets the piano-playing prisoner, Sergeant Horst Ebinger. That morning, an unforeseen friendship begins as the two of them find common ground in their love of music.
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