In Moscow, the truth can be a dangerous commodity.

Ottawa bureaucrat-turned-diplomat Charlie Hillier is back. Having barely survived his first posting in Havana, he is eager to put what he learned there to good use. And it isn't long before Charlie is working a fresh case -- a technical writer from Toronto in jail on dubious drug charges. Charlie has barely put a dent in the brick wall that is the Russian legal system when the young man turns up dead, the official explanation: suicide. But just when evidence to the contrary is discovered, the body is "accidentally" cremated by the authorities.

Undeterred by bureaucratic stonewalling and assisted by the victim's sister and a journalist friend, Charlie follows the sparse clues available. But what they uncover brings them all way too close to powers more dangerous than they could have imagined. Suddenly, the truth is less important than getting out of Russia alive.