Tokyo, 1947. In the third year of the Allied Occupation of Japan, Tatsunori Nakata, Metropolitan Police Inspector, former Imperial Navy officer, and war widower, is called in to solve the murder of a woman found in the city's Ueno Railway Station during a late night squatter roundup. In the process, Inspector Nakata encounters a beautiful investigative journalist, a mysterious Japanese bureaucrat, a powerful American businessman, local gangsters, black market operators, and other survivors of the Second World War. Despite the odds against him, Inspector Nakata navigates through official corruption, deceit, and lethargy from the country's defeat to find out the truth about the crime and the global conspiracy behind it. Along the way, he might also find an unexpectedly meaningful future for himself.