Winter is what Muscovites live for. Knee-deep snow softens the city and flows fi’om golden dome to golden dome. Snow makes the sedans of the rich and powerful crawl behind snow ploughs. Snow drives the common citizen into the Metro, where stations are still ’Palaces of the Proletariat’. "lhere on the platform people see the ghost of Joseph Stalin. Not everyone, it seems, likes the fact that Stalin is dead...

Winter is what Muscovites live for. Knee-deep snow softens the city and flows fi’om golden dome to golden dome. Snow makes the sedans of the rich and powerful crawl behind snow ploughs. Snow drives the common citizen into the Metro, where stations are still ’Palaces of the Proletariat’. "lhere on the platform people see the ghost of Joseph Stalin. Not everyone, it seems, likes the fact that Stalin is dead...

Assigned to this delicate matter is the pariah of the Prosecutor’s Office, Senior Investigator Arkady Renko.

But in the midst of a blizzard nothing is as it first appears to be. Renko’s girlfriend, Eva, and his adopted son, Zhenya, seem to be slipping into danger. The owner of a matrimonial agency wants her husband killed. An innocent ’Russian Bride’ employs a garrotte. A chess grandmaster wanders into Renko’s life and leads him into the line of fire. Diehard Communists gather to sing along with Stalin. ’Red Diggers’ uncover secrets buried for halfa century in a desolate forest and Renko discovers ghosts that have bccn waiting for him all his life...