Hamburg, 1947. A ruined city occupied by the British who bombed it, experiencing the coldest winter in living memory. Food is scarce; refugees and the homeless crowd into shantytowns and sheds. There is a killer on the loose, and all attempts to find him or her have failed.

Plagued with worry about his missing son, Frank Stave is a career policeman with a tragedy in his past that is driving his determination to find the killer. With the help of his colleague Maschke from the vice squad and Lt MacDonald from the British military, Stave has to find out why - in the wake of a wave of atrocity, the grim Nazi past and the bleak attempts by his German countrymen to re-create a country from the apocalypse - someone is still dedicated to murder.

A spine-tingling portrayal of pure evil, with multiple twists, turns and subplots. What, or who, will rise from the ashes?