"Why shouldn't those Baltic provinces stew in their own juice for a while?" says Stalin, not long before dying in offi ce. The President of the Baltic Peoples Republic, Marshal Jurgis Tievas, after an ill-fated visit to socialist Britain, returns to Gdainys to fi nd himself besieged by domestic enemies. Nor is he comforted by being an impostor, the double of the Marshal who was inadvertently killed in Britain. Seven of his entourage know his secret. Now his beloved niece Valija invites two of their British friends, Elizabeth Templeton and Michael Brenan, to stay-who may or may not know the secret.