On his birthday, Bruno Walter true sparrow, an good-humored dog-catcher, take a phone call that leave him dog bit and late to pick up his married woman. She’s shop in a bookshop, find a blood-red-covered novel, a slaying enigma with numerology that loop invariably around the figure 23. The narrative capture Bruno Walter: he dream it, he detect aspect of his life that can be render by “23,” he search for the writer, he stay in the hotel (in room 23) where event in the novel take topographic point, and he get down to believe it was no novel. His married woman and son try to assist him, sometimes in understanding, sometimes to protect him. slow, with danger to himself and to his household, he close in on the truth.