The stolen manuscript

In the Konstanz Island Hotel, the esteemed medieval historian Richard Merak is found dead. He was supposed to give the keynote speech at the congress celebrating the 600th anniversary of the Council of Constance. His funeral brings Laura back to her hometown of Basel after five years and forces her to confront her former life as Merak's wife and the self-absorbed Basel patriciate. In the process, she uncovers contradictions between her husband's scholarly work and the findings of his unsuccessful rival Hans Peterson, who drowned in the Rhine a few months earlier. Laura begins to trace the reasons for the differing assessments and soon concludes that there must be a connection between the dissent and the deaths of the two historians. She becomes entangled in a web of secrets and herself becomes a suspect.