One-thousand-year model of the Germanic man G n Bauer jumps ship to prove his mettle, aboard the Reich's premier liner at the exact moment World War 2 begins. Before R.M.S. Queen Elizabeth slipped secretly from the Clyde, another ship of state, S.S. Bremen, made a dash just as daring, from the Hudson to an iceless Soviet harbour. In a single 1939 week, G n bounces from a kinky New York wiseguy to the mystery of a body in Bremen's library...