Claire Brennan has travelled to Moscow to fill in at work for her former boyfriend Ian, a journalist who is ill in the hospital. But she arrives to bleak news: Ian is dead. Instead of a hotel, her first stop is the hospital morgue.

When Claire learns that a considerable amount of money is missing from the office, and that Ian is believed to be behind the theft, she becomes obsessed with tracing the cash-and proving his innocence. But for every truth that she uncovers there is another lie in its place. She seems to have stumbled on a conspiracy.

Then the autopsy reveals that Ian's death was no accident. Everyone she has met in Moscow-Russian and American alike-seems to have their own agenda. Do any of them also have a motive for murder?