With the Communist government in East Germany on the verge of collapse, Dr. Rudi Rosenharte, an ex-Stasi former agent turned art scholar, is forced into a dangerous game when the secret police kidnap his family in an effort to force him to seek out his old lover, Annalise Schering, in order to retrieve possible information she might have, but unbeknownst to authorities, the woman is dead. Reprint.