Berlin, 1934: The Nazis have secured the 1936 Olympiad. Hitler and Avery Brundage have connived to soft-pedal Nazi anti-Semitism and convince America to participate. Bernie Gunther, house detective at a Berlin hotel, is swept into the corruption. Havana, 1954: Batista has seized power; Castro is in prison; and the American Mafia is gaining a stranglehold on the city. Bernie who has resurfaced in Cuba, discovers he cannot outrun the burden of his past.

Twenty years after being embroiled in the Nazi regime of 1934 Berlin, detective Bernie Gunther pursues a quieter life in Havana but is thwarted by an encounter with a killer from his past who is murdered at the same time a former lover reappears.