Moscow lies deep under snow, and Arkady Renko is on the trail of a suspect police officer, a former Black Beret who served with glory against the insurgency in Chechnya. But proof of the man's corruption is proving more elusive to gather. Then Renko's unpopular boss calls him in to handle a delicate matter: passengers riding the last metro of the night have reported seeing the ghost of Stalin waving to them from the platform edge. Every night at the...

Struggling with a prosecutor's refusal to send work his way, investigator Arkady Renko of Moscow finds his efforts to watch out for teen chess prodity Zhenya challenged by a case involving a kidnapped baby, a dead prostitute, and police corruption.

Journalist Tatiana Petrovna is on the move. Arkady Renko, iconic Moscow investigator and Tatiana's part-time lover, hasn't seen her since she left on assignment over a month ago. When she doesn't arrive on her scheduled train, he's positive something is wrong. No one else thinks Renko should be worried--Tatiana is known to disappear during deep assignments--but he knows her enemies all too well and the criminal lengths they'll go to keep her quiet....