Posing as an escaping Nazi war criminal Bernie Gunther Berlin’s hardest-boiled private eye arrives in Buenos Aires. When he reveals his real identity to the local chief of police he discovers that his reputation as a detective goes before him. A young girl has been murdered in peculiarly gruesome circumstances that strongly resemble Bernie’s final case as a homicide detective. Circumstances lead the chief of police to suppose that the murderer may be one of several thousand ex-Nazis who have fetched up in Argentina since 1945. Reluctantly Gunther agrees to help find the murderer and discovers much more than he or they bargained for.