A man bound, gagged and sealed alive inside a wall to die. Another quartered, his fingers severed. One of the victims was a musician, the other a locksmith. The only detail that the killings have in common - apart from their abnormal savagery - is a page of a calendar with the day of the death marked in blood.

To solve these bizarre murders, Criminal Councillor Eberhard Mock must search for answers in Breslau's underworld, a decadent demi-monde he knows all too well. As he pursues the investigation, his marriage is in decline. In revenge for his misdemeanours, Mock's wife embarks on a sexual odyssey of her own involving a mysterious figure who appears to be connected with the apocalyptic fever gripping the city and high society of Breslau in the late Twenties. Mock, himself the most ambiguous and complex of policemen, must confront a cult that preaches the imminent end of the world.