In the back alleys and glittering salons of night-time Europe, war is already underway as Soviet intelligence and the Nazi Gestapo confront each other in an intricate duel of espionage. On the front line is André Szara, a born survivor - of the Polish pogroms, the Stalinist purges and the Russian civil wars. His only goal is to keep going, but slowly, inextricably, he is drawn into the dark intrigues of pre-war Europe where life is a grey uncertainty of cheap hotel rooms, love affairs that cannot last and friends who have ceased to exist.