A summer of the century in Basel – but no vacation for Inspector Hunkeler. Instead of spending time with his partner Hedwig in Alsace, he has to take on a murky case: his family doctor, a liberal politician well known in the city, has been found murdered in her practice. A few drug addicts who had been supplied with methadone by her come under suspicion. But Hunkeler's instinct for the depths of the human psyche leads him unerringly down a different path.