Kiev 1911 When a twelve-year-old Russian boy is found stabbed to death his body drained of blood the accusation of ritual murder is levelled at the Jews Yakov Bok
- a handyman hiding his Jewish identity from his anti-Semitic employer
- is first outed & blamed Arrested & imprisoned Bok refuses to confess to a crime that he did not commit What becomes of this man under pressure for whom acquittal is made to seem as hopeless as conviction is the subject of a terrifying masterpiece of twentieth-century fiction