It is the fall of 1963, and the discovery of a young girl's mutilated body in a ditch on the outskirts of Geistburg, Germany, forces disgraced homicide detective Steve Bodowski, now a member of the U.S. Army's Criminal Investigation Division, to reawaken old instincts in order to solve the horrific crime.

Steve Bodowski has hit rock bottom. On the slow mend from the alcoholism and depression that ended his rising career as a homicide detective in Tacoma, Washington, and now a reluctant part of the Army's Criminal Investigation Division stationed in post-Occupation Germany, Bodowski is thrown back into his old life when the body of a young girl is discovered, assaulted and horribly mutilated.

Complicating his efforts to solve the case are his supervisor, Major Palls, who prizes expediency over truth; the war hero LeMarc, a violent alcoholic whose daughter has disappeared; and the enigmatic Herr Leutnant Kross, a member of the local Polizei, who seems to know more than he should.

With his affable partner, Stan Melcher, along for the ride, Bodowski works to untangle the twisted web of corruption in Geistburg and take down a sex slave ring that preys on young girls and bears a mysterious connection to the Romani carnival newly come to town. But as the mysteries begin to unravel one after another, Bodowski finds solving the case may be the least of his problems.