Detective Inspector Oskar Rheinhardt summons a young disciple of Freud - his friend Dr. Max Liebermann - to assist him with the case. The investigation draws them into the sphere of Vienna's secret societies - a murky underworld of German literary scholars, race theorists, and scientists inspired by the new English evolutionary theories.

Frank Tallis is a writer and pracitising clinical psychologist. He has published seven non-fiction books (including Changing Minds: The History of Psychotherapy as an Answer to Human Suffering and Hidden Minds: A History of the Unconscious). He has also written two novels; Killing Time and Sensing Others, both published by Penguin. In 1999 he received a Writers' Award from the Arts Council of Great Britain and in 2000 he won the New London Writers' Award (London Arts Board). Mortal Mischief was published by Century in 2005. He lives and works in London.