In besieged Sarajevo in May 1992, several shells hit people waiting for bread on the street behind the market. Twenty-two people were killed and many more were wounded. For the next twenty-two days, a famous Sarajevo cellist played Albinoni's Adagio in G minor at the site in memory of the dead, accompanied by grenades and sniper fire. His act was the inspiration for the novel The Cellist, which takes us to the streets of the destroyed city - among its inhabitants and their struggle for daily survival, and into the company of Strelica, a brilliant sniper who tries to ensure that the cellist survives, because music proves that the world is still capable of goodness.