Hired by a Hollywood film company to trace a missing employee in Crete, private investigator Alex Mavros is plunged into a vortex of hatred dating from the Second World War. The company is shooting a big budget movie about the invasion of Crete by the Germans in 1941 – and their activities are stirring up old resentments among the islanders and painful memories best left forgotten.

The bitterness of the past bursts into the present when one of the film’s consultants is found dead, hanged by the neck. Suicide – or murder? His investigations into the cause of death draw Mavros deep into an ever-widening conspiracy involving antiquities theft, illegal drugs and a man-eating starlet. Over it all flows the stain of past crimes, crimes for which no compensation will ever be enough.