Arkady Renko has made too many enemies and now he toils in obscurity on a Russian factory ship in the middle of the Bering Sea. But when a female crew member is picked up dead with the day's catch, Arkady becomes obsessed with the case and once again discovers more than he wants to know and certainly more than he bargained for.

In Havana, detective Arkady Renko of the Moscow police joins forces with beautiful Ofelia of the Cuban police to investigate the murder of a Russian diplomat. The protagonists find love while the reader gets an inside look at post-Cold War Havana.

Investigator Arkady Renko, the pariah of the Moscow prosecutor's office, has been assigned the thankless job of investigating a new phenomenon: late-night subway riders report seeing the ghost of Joseph Stalin on the platform of the Chistye Prudy Metro station. The illusion seems part political hocus-pocus and also part wishful thinking, for among many Russians Stalin is again popular; the bloody dictator can boast a two-to-one approval rating. Decidedly...

When the corpse of a Russian is hauled from the oily waters of Havana Bay, Arkady Renko comes to Cuba to identify the body. Looking for the killer, he discovers a city of faded loneliness, unexpected danger, and bewildering contradictions. His investigation introduces him to a beautiful Cuban policewoman; to the rituals of Santeria; to an American fugitive and a group of ruthless mercenaries. In this place where all things Russian are despised, where...

Journalist Tatiana Petrovna is on the move. Arkady Renko, an iconic Moscow investigator, and Tatiana's part-time lover hasn't seen her since she left on assignment over a month ago. When she doesn't arrive on her scheduled train, he's positive something is wrong. No one else thinks Renko should be worried, Tatiana is known to disappear during deep assignments, but he knows her enemies all too well and the criminal lengths they'll go to keep her quiet....