Publisher's Synopsis
At an icebound naval weather station in far Siberia, the young daughter of an exile dies under suspicious circumstances. The high-ranking Commissar sent to investigate the mystery suffers a similar fatemurdered by an icicle thrust into his skull. Inspector Porfiry Rostnikov is dispatched to solve the Commissars murder, with one strange caveat: he is not to investigate the girls death, even if all the clues tell him that the two cases are linked.
