Rosso is the detective inspector trying to find a brutal murderer in the heart of a Balkan city ravaged by war. He has learnt to take each day as it comes, with violence and death around every corner.

Luka is the local crime boss, intent on exploiting the misery of his city's inhabitants while also providing the only means of defence they have left.

Tanja is the young woman loved, and set up, by both men and faced with an impossible conflict of loyalties.

Flett is the foreign reporter, a US citizen who hears and sees it all, partially protected by his job, but like the others, sucked into the mire that is Sarajevo, a battered but defiant capital torn apart by a civilisation that has turned on itself.