They came on a distant, secret night, armed and ready to kill. Their ghosts are still with us today...In June 1942 a party of German saboteurs landed by submarine in the United States of America. They were betrayed and executed within eight weeks of their landing. Their treacherous leader served a prison sentence and then disappeared. Orders for New York takes this historical fact as its starting point and tells the story of Michael Findlater, a British journalist who is in the USA researching for a book. Invited to meet his ex-wife Madelaine for the first time since their divorce and to see his twelve-year-old daughter, Findlater finds he is, in fact, being recruited for a well-paid secret mission. Madelaine's father-in-law, a wealthy and successful newspaper proprietor, wants him to take on the assignment of finding the vanished Nazi saboteur, Peter Karl Hine and write his story. Spurred on partly by the huge reward on offer and partly by curiosity, Findlater embarks on his quest and rapidly discovers that there are ruthless parties involved, who will stop at nothing to prevent him.