The main character in Chase Me, Catch Nobody is Erik, a sensitive, reflective boy who likes to think of himself as a poet. Although he describes himself as a "middle-of-the-roader," he is not one to join a crowd. Raised in a family where "the weather was discussed with more interest than politics," Erik is initially ignorant of political realities and is something of a snob. But on the ferry crossing from Denmark to Germany, Erik encounters a mysterious man being shadowed by the police; before the Gestapo arrest him, this stranger hands Erik a package containing fifty blank Danish passports. Erik decides to complete the stranger's mission and deliver these passports—intended for smuggling Jews and other "undesirables" out of Germany—to an address in Hamburg.

The girl nodded... "But nobody," I protested, "could live here all the time and never go...