Artwork restorer and sometime spy Gabriel Allon is delivered to Vienna to authenticate a painting, but the real object of his search becomes something else entirely: to learn the truth about the picture which has turned his world upside down. It is the face of the unnamed guy who brutalized his mom in the last days of World War II, through the Death March from Auschwitz. But is it actually the same one? If therefore, who is he? How do he escape abuse? Where can be he now?

Fueled by an strength he hasn’t felt in years, Allon cautiously begins to investigate, but the more layers he strips away, the greater the evil that is revealed, an internet stretching across sixty years and thousands of lives. Shortly, the quest for one monster turns into the search for many. And the monsters are stirring . .

Filled up with sharply etched characters and prose, and a storyline of astonishing intricacy, that is an uncommonly smart thriller by one of our very best writers.