[3] The plot revolves around the rather undeveloped, faceless Peter Höllriegl, an Austrian soldier during World War II who returns home after Russian captivity.
Two of the "investigators" are a retired geology professor from the German Rhineland, Dietrich Genzmer, and a Dutch businessman, Louis Holk, and their experiences with Peter are recounted in the first and last of three parts.
The young woman who runs the bar develops a friendship with him; as it turns out she has also been traumatized and has been taken in to redeem a sexually compromised past.
His epistolary novel De overnachting (1947) has a plot line involving a love triangle in the Alps, his trilogy Symphonie van Victor Slingerland (1957-1959) is likewise partly set in the Austrian Alps, and De arme Heinrich (1958), Een Alpenroman (1961), and Het genadeschot (1964) are also Alpine novels.
't Hart concludes that the novel (which he thinks might be inspired by William Faulkner's Soldiers' Pay) shows "les defaults de ses qualités", and reserves praise only for the characterization of Höllriegl.