Studer investigates when the director vanishes and a child murderer escapes from an insane asylum in Bern, an environment Glauser knew all too well from personal experience. Set in the 1920s, the novel explores the no-man's-land between reason and madness where Matto, the spirit of insanity, reigns. Dubions psychological theories and therapies abound and the asylum darkly mirrors the world outside.