From Syringa Vulgaris, or the lilac tree exploding into life only to expire in its prime, Syringa is a literary thriller set on New Year''s Eve in Berlin where the labyrinthine story of a decades-long love affair is retold by an ex-journalist as he awaits his own assassination. The doomed couple''s only living link is an AWOL German soldier named Hissel, hired to kill three people connected to the woman''s disappearance, but his own disappearance months earlier becomes the missing puzzle piece as the clock ticks down to each character''s fateful moments of atonement and brutal revenge.