Small World is a case study, social novel and thriller at one and the same time. Konrad Lang, in his mid-sixties, is suddenly confronted by vivid pictures from his childhood. And the down-at-the-heel old man is drawn as if by magic to the villa of his former »family«, where people are reluctant to remember him. What is he up to? asks above all eighty-year-old Elvira Senn, the incontestable head of the family and grand old lady of the renowned Swiss Koch works. She is irritated by Konrad's growing powers of recollection - and with good reason: Elvira has something to hide. Konrad's childhood and youth were extremely unusual. As the illegitimate child of a maidservant, and playmate - or lackey - of a millionaire's son of the same age, he grew up in the world of the rich without ever being accepted into it. And now the confused old man wants only one thing: to be accepted into the bosom of the family, which did not always treat him well. Elvira Senn believes he is in need of care and takes him in. But as time goes on she feels more and more threatened by Konrad, particularly as he finds, unexpectedly, a protectress among the members of the family. A dramatic race begins, a race against time, against a mysterious illness, and against the old lady's increasing panic. It ends in an almost cheerful finale.