For Inspector Peter Hunkeler, New Year brings a gruesome case. A badly ravaged male corpse is found in a garden allotment on the edge of Basel. During his search for the killer, the wayward inspector has to deal with quarrelsome allotment holders and the trials and tribulations of cross-border police work. The case becomes increasingly mystifying when Hunkeler stumbles upon a sinister Second World War connection. What exactly happened in the Alsatian village of Ballersdorf in February 1943? And how are those events connected to the case?