A dark trail into post-war South Tyrol. A German writer and her husband are coldly shot in Merano - it looks like an execution. The case leads Commissioner Pavarotti and his great love Lissie von Spiegel to the heart of the German publishing scene in Frankfurt. Perhaps the author researched too intensely: about the time after World War II, when Nazis fled in droves to South Tyrol via the "rat line" - with the active support of high circles. Who is trying to protect their secret at all costs?.