A boy comes of age under an oppressive, cruel socialist government and watches as it slowly but surely distorts his family, his school and even his own thoughts.
A psychological detective story about a police hunt for the murderer of young boys. The police comissioner ends up tracing the clues to his own home, where he has an adolescent son he has not been able to communicate with.
Set in World War 2 as the Germans occupy Czechoslovakia, teenage Emilka's father is murdered by the Nazis, but she is selected for special treatment by virtue of being blonde. She is billeted with the commandant of a concentration camp near the Baltic coast, where his kindness towards her provokes his wife's jealousy, but is compromised when Emilka witnesses his brutality towards the prisoners.
