A local high school boy, Todd Bowden, discovers Nazi war criminal Kurt Dussander living in his neighborhood under the assumed name Arthur Denker. Rather than turn Dussander over to the authorities, Todd makes a strange deal where Dussander will tell him "what it felt like" during the Jewish Holocaust of World War II in exchange for Todd's silence. Todd becomes an "apt pupil" of the horror stories Dussander tells and the two enter into a bizarre relationship of mixed hate and friendship culminating when Todd helps Dussander cover up a vicious murder.