There are so many people in V. that it is difficult to designate a main character, but most of the action concerns three central figures: Herbert Stencil, Benny Profane, and V. Herbert Stencil is the son of Sidney Stencil, a British agent during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century whose search, as described in his journals, for a mysterious woman, V., motivates his son to continue the quest. The journal material also provides the source for the flashback sections. The elder Stencil died at sea near Malta in 1919. Through the journals, Herbert Stencil learns that his father had tracked V. from her first appearance as a girl in Egypt not only through Africa and Italy but also to Paris in 1913 where she was part of the avant garde.

Further evidence suggests that she was present in Malta during the German bombing raids of World War II and...