Featuring Hauptkommissar M]ller and his sidekick, Pappenheim M]ller is hot on the trail of the puppet-masters behind the assassination of his parents, and struggling to cope with the consequences of the knowledge he has uncovered. Meanwhile, he also has to deal with the kidnapping of a US colonel's family . . . and with the fact that the colonel has resigned his commission to take the law into his own hands and hunt down the kidnappers like an avenging angel. But still darker facts are to come to light, and the realization that there is in fact a hidden connection between the kidnapping and the death of his parents all those years ago.