Dutch born Otto Vogel and German born Benno Schumacher became friends in their youth as they worked side by side in South Africa in the late 1950's. In later years greed gnawed away at their friendship and the discovery of the role their fathers played in World War II adds to the erosion. Greed and anger had killed their fathers. A secret letter discovered by Otto in 1994 reopens the events of World War II that will cause Otto and Benno even more anguish. Three apparently unrelated murders are eventually threaded together by Bill Reardon, a plodding New york City detective. This is the final trigger that leads to the solution of the last one of the major mysteries of Holocaust wealth that had been lost for fifty years.