The Web and the Wing opens on Armistice Day, in the Lancashire village of Ardleagh. In Ardleagh Hall, home of the Earl of Eglinton, the Earl's son James is madly in love with Claire, a maid whose father was killed in one of the Earl's mines. It is a love thwarted by class distinction and greed – the same forces that that will flash throughout Europe and eventually light the bonfire of Hitler’s Third Reich.

After the defeat of the miners in the bitter strike of 1926, James leaves home to become a concert pianist in Berlin in the Weimar Republic, now a mecca of the arts. There he witnesses, with concern, Adolph Hitler's rise to power. Meanwhile, the Earl's sister, Amelia, who lives her cloistered life in southern Spain, a land of wilting heat, violent revolts and no divorce, is locked into her marriage with Alva, a wealthy, powerful estate-owner with close ties to the Army.

Drawing together the history and people of three nations - Britain, Germany and Spain, The Web and the Wing explores the lust for power, status and wealth as the momentum from one tragic war lumbers ever closer toward another.