Michael Havelock (an anglicized version of Mikhail Havlíček) is a naturalized Czech-American intelligence officer working for the "Consular Ops", the US State Department's black operations division.

At the beginning of the novel he believes he has just witnessed the execution of his partner and the love of his life, Jenna Karas (anglicized version of Jana Karasova), along an isolated stretch of the Costa Brava.

Meanwhile, strategists for Consular Operations in the US government decide that he is a paranoid schizophrenic and must be terminated, lest he compromise entire networks across Europe.

Havelock, who as a child had been one of the few survivors of the massacre at Lidice, has a special bond with Matthias, a fellow Czech who had advised him in graduate school.

When Michael finally traces Jenna to an isolated farm in Pennsylvania, they realize that they were both deceived and that each had been told that the other was an enemy.

Pierce has ordered the murders of the strategists of Consular Operations ( two of them are crushed by a bulldozer in their car and driven off a cliff and another is shot), and then a string of successive killings - all in his own quest to gain evidence of Matthias's insanity.

Pierce is working not for the regular KGB, but the VKR (Voennaya Kontra Razvedka), a fanatical branch of Soviet intelligence identified as an offshoot of the OGPU.

However hearing that Rostov has been murdered, Parsifal decides to sacrifice himself by using his body to block Pierce's gun allowing Michael and Jenna time to get out.

The novel frequently reminds readers of this early part of his life: while searching for Jenna he encounters first an escaped Nazi war criminal, and then a man who has constructed a concentration camp in rural Pennsylvania.

Ron Howard has been attached by Universal Pictures to direct the film adaption of The Parsifal Mosaic, according to Variety.