Inspector Mehmet Süleyman is on holiday in Romania when his distant cousin calls. Nurettin Süleyman has bought the Wooden Library, an ancient building in Istanbul once owned by their ancestor.

He needs help cataloguing its priceless contents and who better for the job than Mehmet's old friend Çetin Ikmen? As Ikmen sets to work, he detects a terrible smell pervading the library that leads to the discovery of a rotting corpse. The dead body is that of Senol Ulusoy, the man who sold Nurettin the library...

A long-running feud between the two families comes to light, as does the bitter rivalry between the three Ulusoy brothers, fuelled by their father's cruel manipulation. Then pathologist Arto Sarkissian makes a shocking discovery that turns this case on its head, and Süleyman's detective team must dig deep to reveal a truth that is rooted in the past as well as the present...