>Dispatched to Gdansk, Poland, on the western Baltic, on the rumor that an excellent investment opportunity might arise - the possibility of rebuilding the Kiel Canal - John Putnam Thatcher finds himself in the midst of two quite extraordinary events.

>The first is the complete chaos that ensues when the canal, little-publicized but the carrier of more traffic than any other such body in the world, becomes completely snarled on a foggy night, with hundreds of boats, small and large, blindly stumbling every which way within the crowded basin. Dramatic as that is, the other event affects our friend more personally: an official of BADA, the Baltic Area Development Association, is found murdered in the aftermath of a champagne party.