After a teacher dies, his best friend — a former cop — takes a job at the school where he worked to confront the gang he thinks was responsible.

Romek is a Polish railway worker and Guido is a German soldier. They are both 17, in love with jazz and the same pretty girl. But it's 1943 somewhere in German-occupied Poland, and their lives are bound to change soon.

A stay-at-home mom and avid reader of crime stories discovers the deepest secrets of a small town's residents while investigating a woman's murder.