In the back alleys and glittering salons of night-time Europe, war is already underway as soviet intelligence and the Nazi Gestapo confront each other in an intricate duel of espionage. On the front line is André Szara, a born survivor - of the Polish pogroms, the Stalinist purges and the Russian civil wars. His only goal is to keep going in a world where betrayal can come at any time. But slowly, inextricably he is drawn into the dark intrigues of pre-war Europe where life is a grey uncertainty of cheap hotel rooms, love affairs that cannot last and friends who have ceased to exist...