Louise Boni, chief inspector with the Black Forest crime squad, is struggling with her demons. Divorced at forty-two, she is haunted by the shadows of the past. Dreading yet another a dreary winter weekend alone, she receives a call from the departmental chief which signals the strangest assignment of her career - to trail a Japanese monk wandering through the snowy wasteland to the east of Freiburg, dressed only in sandals and a cowl. She sets of reluctantly, and by the time she catches up with him, she discovers that he is injured, and fearfully fleeing some unknown evil. Her investigations uncover a hideous ring of child traffickers, and the repercussions of their crimes will change the course of her own life.

Translated from the German by Jamie Bulloch