A rather confused novel in many ways, it examines the events before and
during World War II in what is now Belarus by taking the back story of two
elderly people, one the grandfather of a university lecturer and researcher
and one the mother of the former's department head. The link is added to
by an investigating journalist who interviews the grandfather as a result of
which he has an involvement with the granddaughter while also being a friend
of the mother. The murder of the lecturer's best friend provides the basic
plot but there is an overload of information which is presented in a far from
satisfactory manner.