It’s two years after the events of March Violets, in 1938. Bernie is back in Berlin, and his practice is now doing reasonably well that he has a partner. But his operations are still based on word-of-mouth, while papers are flooded with advertisements for a competitor, Vogelmann.
Bernie starts investigating a blackmailing case, but just as they are making headway, both his partner and his prime suspect are killed. Bernie himself is reinstated in the police force to look for a serial killer targeting blonde, blue-eyed teenage girls.
Each lead turns out to be a dead end, and the murders keep piling up. When one couple reveal that they had contracted private detective Vogelmann, Bernie pretends to be the father of the next missing girl and meets Vogelmann. Soon he finds himself at a seance, along with Himmler himself, trying to communicate with the spirit of the missing girl, where the medium reveals the location.
Bernie deduces that the whole setup was to abduct and kill girls, and make it seem as though Jewish deviants were responsible; the whole exercise designed to turn public sentiment against the race.
At times convoluted and confusing, the book features a large cast of characters, several of whom were actual historical figures and influential people in Nazi Germany. While the book is fast-paced, it becomes increasingly hard to keep track of the plot as several people are introduced midway and become central to the story line. A decent read, on the whole.