Reykjavik, August 1941. When a travelling sales rep is found murdered in a Reykjavik flat, killed by a bullet from a Colt 45, the police initially suspect a member of the Allied occupation force. The British are in the process of handing over to the Americans and the streets of Reykjavik are crawling with servicemen whose relations with the local women are a major cause for concern. Flovent, Reykjavik's sole detective, is joined by the young military policeman Thorson, the son of Icelandic emigrants to Canada. Their investigation focuses on a family of German residents, the retired doctor Rudolf Lunden and his estranged son Felix, who is on the run, suspected of being a spy. Flovent and Thorson race to solve the case before US Counterintelligence can take it out of their hands, amid rumours of a pending visit by Churchill. But the plot thickens as evidence emerges of dubious experiments carried out on Icelandic schoolboys in the 1930s, while Thorson becomes increasingly suspicious of the role played by the murdered man's former girlfriend, Vera, and her British soldier lover.