Bernie Gunther, Berlin's hardest-boiled private eye, returns in this his latest outing. Moving the plot from Pre-War Germany to the dangers of Argentina, Kerr yet again delivers a powerful, compelling thriller. Posing as an escaping Nazi war-criminal Bernie arrives in Buenos Aires and, having revealed his real identity to the local chief of police, discovers that his reputation as a detective goes before him. A young girl has been murdered in peculiarly gruesome circumstances that strongly resemble Bernie's final case as a homicide detective with the Berlin police. A case he had failed to solve.