The story, set in 1944, revolves around an unnamed 89-year-old long-retired detective (who may or may not be Sherlock Holmes, but is always called just "the old man"), now interested mostly in beekeeping, and his quest to find a missing parrot, the only friend of a mute Jewish boy.

The story opens with the description of a chance encounter between the old man and the young boy Linus Steinman, who, we find out moments later, is a German-Jewish refugee staying with a local Anglican priest and his family.

The old man, his interest piqued by the boy's strange attachment to his bird, agrees only to find the parrot — "If we should encounter the actual murderer along the way, well, then it will be so much the better for you," he says (ending chapter 3).

Another hint, revealed in the book's penultimate chapter, which is told from the perspective of Bruno, is that the boy and his parrot used to visit an Obergruppenführer while still in Germany, where it is implied he learned the song.

[1] Deborah Friedell of The New York Times described the writing as "exceptional, on par with the best, most tightly written sections of Chabon's last novel, the marvelous but uneven Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay.