Volunteering as a World War II Army nurse after receiving a letter from her missing-in-action soldier brother, Juliet finds her search hindered by field hospital work and the court-martial of a wounded deserter who may hold answers.

"When the application for a new sedative called Kevadon--commonly known as thalidomide--landed on Frances Kelsey's desk at the FDA in 1960, it seemed destined to sail through the review process. The drug, billed as entirely risk-free, was already being sold in forty-six countries. But when Kelsey learned that the drug caused terrible birth defects, she and a team of dedicated doctors, parents, and journalists fought Merrell, the drug's American manufacturer,...