Vienna, 1909. The actor of the Court Theatre, Eugenios Bisof, is found dead in the pavilion of his mansion. His death is linked to a series of mysterious deaths. Are they suicides or murders? Is the narrator of the story, Baron von Yos, guilty? Two friends of the deceased actor, adopting the roles of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, take on the task of solving the murder.

However, the reader is also called to play the role of detective, as the story constantly hovers between certainty and doubt, between truth and lies. The Master of the Second Coming combines art with pleasure in the most natural way, the anxiety for the outcome of the plot with the anxiety of a conscience that must confront the specter of guilt.

Leo Perutz has expertly crafted his story set against the backdrop of the capital of the once-mighty Austro-Hungarian Empire. An entire world, which will shortly be swept away by war, is vividly portrayed thanks to the narrative mastery of the author, the evocative atmosphere, and the elegiac mood that permeates the work.

"The Master of the Second Coming can be characterized, depending on the perspective, as a detective novel, a psychological novel, but also a novel – in any case, an ironic one – about the genesis of Art. These various narrative levels coexist like overlapping layers in the same text, and the reader is crowned as the creator of the true story that the novel tackles in a very contradictory way." HANS-HARALD MÜLLER