Inspector Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov is an honest policeman in a very dishonest post-Soviet Union. Rostnikov and his team are searching for a serial killer who has claimed at least forty victims. And then there is the problem of protecting a visiting British journalist who is working on a story about a Moscow prostitution ring. In doing so Rostnikov and the team uncover a chain of murders leading to a source too high to be held accountable.