Located in the remote province of Transylvania in late nineteenth-century Hungary, Bistritz is a quaint provincial city nestled in the Carpathian mountains and forests. For one looking forward to a quiet retirement, the pretty Baroque town seems ideal. Such are the thoughts of Kálváry Istvan, a recently widowed and retired cavalry colonel, as he arrives to take up his last assignment as Chief of Police in the Spring of 1896.

Istvan's expectations are dashed almost immediately upon his arrival.He learns that his predecessor’s sudden and unexplained disappearance, along with his pretty wife, was the reason for his appointment. The authorities in Budapest also neglected to mention a manhunt underway in the district lead by Gábor Kasza, a brilliant young investigator from the Royal Hungarian Gendarmerie. Kasza's superiors suspect a serial killer haunts the streets of Bistritz and the surrounding Carpathian farms and villages.

Applying the latest methods of detection in the new field of scientific, deductive reasoning, and psychiatry, Istvan and Kasza suspect the Roma, a persecuted minority making their home in a hidden village in the thick forests of the Carpathian Mountains. While investigating the strange activities of the Roma, the detectives find that the isolated mountain people of the Carpathians have a different explanation for the killings. They point to the ancient, abandoned castle towering over the Borgo Pass - and fearfully whisper a name: Dracula.