In the late '60s Jerusalem was dubbed 'The Butcher's Theatre'. Now, decades later, the City of Peace is a butcher's theatre once more. The first victim in a young Arab girl, whose obscenely mutilated corpse is found in some bushes on the slopes of Mount Scopus. The mixture of calculation and frenzy involved in her murder sends a shockwave through a society where warfare and terrorism are everyday facts of life - but where sex murders and serial killers are virtually unknown. Chief Inspector Daniel Shalom Sharavi, himself a Yemenite Jew, takes charge of the case to uncover a complex trail which leads to a point where private psychosis and public politics threaten to explode. But will he be too late?