Leonid Meyer is found murdered in his flat in Balat, Istanbul s decrepit Jewish quarter, a swastika daubed on the wall in the old man s blood. But Inspector Cetin Ikmen is quick to eschew the obvious conclusion that this is a racist attack. The evidence leads Ikmen and his young lieutenant, Suleyman, to two people: Robert Cornelius, a teacher observed outside Meyer s flat shortly after the murder, and a retired businessman, Reinhold Smits, known to have had Nazi sympathies. But another link connects these two: a ninety-year-old Russian migr , Maria Gulcu, a widow who thinks she possesses a secret worth killing for...