Elvira Maria Andrushko, a young widow, flees the embattled country-side bound for the safe haven, Odessa. As the night train approaches she is violently separated from her small children and arrives in the seaport alone and traumatized. Bewildered by the city's harshness, alienated by unhelpful authorities, and tormented by her loss, she searches Odessa hoping to find her children.

When she meets Michail Lukashenko, an artisan who ekes out a living with a puppet theatre, she is attracted by his charm and the fairytale performances that entertain hundreds of children, who could be her own. But the innocent faces cheering in the crowds are not all happy, nor have they all come to watch the show. Elvira Maria reluctantly enters an underworld where the price of life and the cost of war dictate the terms of survival.

Night Train to Odessa is a beautiful and moving novel of hope and courage, and a loving tribute to Odessa.