While at a conference in Warsaw in 1991, Polish professor of History, Karol Baranowski, becomes embroiled in a series of events that force him to question everything he has ever known. From the moment he wakes up next to a dead prostitute, Baranowski's world is turned upside down and inside out. As he digs into the past to try to make the connection between the dead woman, a 1946 pogrom, the mysterious Jewish-American history student, Joanna, who he meets at the conference, two men both with prominent noses and an old man who speaks in riddles, nothing can prepare Baranowski for what he discovers, and nothing can prepare the reader for the dramatic twist at the end.