Occupied Breslau, 1933: Two young women are found murdered on a train, scorpions writhing on their bodies, an indecipherable note in an apparently oriental language nearby. Police Inspector Eberhard Mock's weekly assignation with two ladies of the night to play chess is interrupted as he is called to investigate. But uncovering the truth is no straightforward matter to Breslau. The city is in the grip of the Gestapo, and has become a place where spies are everywhere, corrupt ministers torture confessionsfrom Jewish merchants, and Freemasons guard their secrets with blackmail and violence. And as Mock and his young assistant plunge into the city's squalid underbelly, the case takes on a dark twist of the occult with the discovery that the killings may berooted in an even more ancient history.--From front inside dust jacket