The master of the witty and elegant detective story, American Lawrence Block this time turns to the classics of cinema. Bernie Rodenbarr, an intellectual second-hand book dealer and at the same time a gentleman thief, receives an order to steal a briefcase with unknown contents. But Bernie is unlucky: not only was the briefcase stolen before him, not only does he forget his own case somewhere, the customer himself also disappears without a trace, a corpse lies in his apartment... and Bernie’s case with an incomprehensible inscription written in blood is found nearby ... Then a beautiful foreign stranger appears, a passionate Bogart fan. As if in the movie "Casablanca", out of all the shops in all the cities around the world, she chooses Bernie's used bookstore. And then the enchanted thief, unnoticed by himself, takes on the image of a courageous and noble loser and in this Bogartian role participates in the political fate of an entire European state...