In 1939, two lives leave Madagascar on different terms. Daphne Rousseau departs for Paris as a new bride, carrying her colonial world with her into the indifferent capital. Fanamby, called Fred by the colonists, is conscripted into the French army alongside his brother Mahafaly, under the command of Daphne's older brother Jean-Pierre.

By 1940, France has fallen. Jean-Pierre and Mahafaly are dead. Fanamby is wounded, alone, and walking north through the wreckage of a defeated country toward a city under occupation — because a man stepped back from a line and died there, and his sister does not know.

What follows is the story of two people bound by grief, colonial history, and a dangerous present: Daphne maintaining her careful façade in occupied Paris while quietly aiding the Resistance; Fanamby bringing his soldier's knowledge to a war fought in shadows and safe houses. Watching them both is the Milice, patient and brutal.

Tree of Shadows asks what loyalty means when the country that claimed it has surrendered, and what justice looks like in a courtroom that still cannot see past the colour of a man's skin.