A Moscow cop juggles cases of kidnapping, murder, and a missing Czarist-era document in a modern-day mystery with "never a dull moment" (Library Journal). In the waning days of the Russian Empire, the Czar inked a secret treaty with Japan that was stolen en route by one of the workmen on the Trans-Siberian Railway. More than a one hundred years later, the Soviet Union has gone the way of the Czardom, and police inspector Porfiry Rostnikov is trying to find his way in the Russia of Vladimir Putin. A large amount of money is being sent from Odessa to Vladivostok to purchase a mysterious Czarist document, and Rostnikov's superior believes it may be this long-lost treaty. Eastbound ticket in hand, Rostnikov sets out to investigate. Meanwhile, his subordinates in Moscow tackle a female Jack the Ripper and an anti-Semitic punk rocker whose mob connections may have gotten him kidnapped. It's a brave new world in western Russia, but where Rostnikov is going, the landscape hasn't changed in centuries.