After the accident, Edgar Bendler decides to step out of his own life. He becomes a dishwasher on Hiddensee, that legendary island which is said to lie outside of time and »beyond the headlines«.

And it is there, in the dishwashing station of The Hermit, a bar high above the sea, that Ed meets Alexander Krusowitsch – Kruso – and a difficult, yet tender, relationship begins. Kruso, master of ceremonies and godfather of the island, initiates Ed into the rituals of the seasonal workers and the rules that govern their nights, thereby conducting Ed toward his own sexual awakening. The secret heart of the confraternity is Kruso’s idea of utopia, which in just three nights promises to carry each and every one of the land’s (and life’s) shipwrecked souls to the Roots of Freedom. However, the events of the autumn of 1989 do not fail to shake the island. A struggle between life and death ensues – and a promise.

Part island adventure story and part story of an extraordinary friendship: Lutz Seiler’s first, long awaited novel draws a line from the summer of 1989 into the present. The exceptional investigations that form the basis of the novel attempt to follow the traces of those who went missing in their escape attempts across the Baltic Sea, and in so doing, leads us all the way to Copenhagen and to the catacombs of the Danish state police.

»The storm raged unimpeded across the slender isle, as if it were to be cleansed once more before the final decline.«

»There was no sign, no password. Just before midnight they would simply come into his room. They would stand there in the dark, no one would turn on the light, Viola would play the national anthem.«