A cynical local reporter finds out that the grandmother who brought him up is really not his relative. Suddenly, the past he has called his own turns out to be a complete fabrication; from the stories of his parents to the photos in the family albums. So starts the most important investigation the reporter has ever undertaken, one in which the main suspect is the mother he never knew. Could it be possible that the woman who gave birth to him was actually one of an elite band of trained killers employed by the Yugoslav Secret Services to liquidate political opponents abroad, and his entire childhood the carefully orchestrated plan of this same organisation. Our hero's journey will take him to the site of wartime atrocities, on the trail of fake suicides across Europe, to the doorstep of an Occult Scottish clan and finally to the empty grave of his own mother. Through his own unique and now recognizable style, Nikolaidis takes us into a world of criminal intrigue and a dissection of our humble human existence. Powerful, rich in philosophy, the reader is as powerless as the hero to free themselves of this binding narrative and find their way through the existential dilemmas.

Translated by: Will Firth