"Gina" is a story about a kidnapping. A twelve-year old girl, committed to an orphanage along with her six siblings due to her mother's inability to care for them, disappears in the middle of the night. Though the crime takes place in Newark, New Jersey, the victim and the perpetrators are from villages in southern Italy, and much of the book is set in these villages and other parts of that country. As the motivation for the kidnapping emerges, it is seen to be connected to the extreme poverty of the region and the brutal character of the victim's father, a World War One Italian army veteran named Pasquale Farinelli. Pasquale's story, along with the stories of a number of others involved in one way or another, is interwoven with the story of the kidnapping itself, which ends in an unexpected way.