East meets West nearly a decade after the collapse of the USSR. Peter Babat, an American bioenvironmental engineer is in Moscow in an official capacity to analyze the long-term effects of the nuclear accident at Chernobyl in 1986. In a chance encounter, he meets beautiful temptress Verushka Dobrovna and her liberated sisters, a few of Russia's enchantresses who send him into a tailspin of memories. With artful storytelling and unforgettable characters, DON'T KILL THE MESSENGER dispels certain myths, and traces complicated relationships played out against a backdrop of a nation recovering from a tumultuous time. Peter is introduced to a new breed of intelligentsia of writers, dissidents, academics, scientists, ethnocentric scholars, and some who sound like American libertarians, eager to confide their country's problems and his concept of Russia changes as he has a showdown of himself and embarks in a burgeoning romance.