(Book). 80 years before Edward Snowden seeks asylum in Putin's Russia, an American autoworker, disillusioned with the stubborn, stagnant inequality in America, moves his family to Russia. His letters home are glowing arias about Stalin's New Man in Soviet Paradise. Then, suddenly, the letters stop. The world of Soviet espionage is shaken with the shocking disappearance of Stalin's invincible Inspector Pekkala whose charred remains are reported from the frontlines. But Stalin refuses to accept the indomitable Pekkala demise and dispatches Pekkala's assistant, Kirov deep into the wild forests of Western Russia, to follow a wilderness trail of clues, each one leading to a more tortured turn of fate. A new enemy has emerged from the fog of war, more deadly than any Kirov or Pekkala have ever faced before. Meanwhile, Pekkala's nemesis is closing in for the kill.