A literary thriller weaving love, loss, and betrayal into a non-linear, puzzle-like narrative.

As the clock ticks down to midnight on New Year’s Eve in Berlin, an ex-journalist braces for his own assassination. He has been searching obsessively for Syringa, a mysterious woman whose disappearance in a war zone has left him with nothing but fragmented memories of a decades-long love affair.

Now, with time running out, the key to her vanishing lies with Hissel—an AWOL German soldier hired to kill three people tied to her fate, who himself disappeared months ago.

As the ex-journalist pieces together traces of their shared past, the line between reality and illusion blurs, building toward a shocking climax that lingers long after the final page.

About the author

Ian Orti is the author of the novel L, and two books of short fiction. He has been published in journals across North America and Europe. He is a former columnist for Matrix magazine and a photocolumnist for McSweeney's Internet Tendency.