Sarajevo is a war-torn city, full of hungry, cold, frightened people. American journalist Branston Flett is on hand to record it all with arrogant bravado.
Amidst the chaos, Police Superintendent Rosso and his staff must solve a murder. A young woman, a police informant, is found dead in The Monkey House, a Serbian apartment complex. The crime resembles that of a powerful Bosnian mafioso warlord and black marketeer, Luka - a man that Rosso is determined to ruin - and he needs Flett as a witness.
For Rosso, a Croat whose alcoholic Serbian wife is slipping deeper into despair and whose Muslim goddaughter may be having an affair with Luka, this case hits too close to home.