In Kossuth square, Lajos Kolompar, a local politican is found dead, face down in a pond in front of Parliament. With his blood alcohol nudging fatal levels, he's believed to have fallen and drowned. Gypsy cop Balthazar Kovacs of the Budapest murder squad reads of Kolompar's death in the news. It stays in the back of his mind until his old girlfriend, journalist Eniko Szalay, receives a tip off from the coroner's office that Kolompar's autopsy results were tampered with. And his body accidentally cremated. Soon, Kovacs is drawn into the Budapest underworld of people smuggling, blackmail and violent political tensions—always caught between the two worlds of the Gypsy and the non-Gypsy, of the law and family loyalty.