Stalin’s most trusted secret agent, the legendary Inspector Pekkala, is on his deadliest mission—one that could save his country . . . or plunge it into the abyss.   It is 1939. Russia teeters on the verge of war with Germany. It is also on the brink of bankruptcy. To preserve his regime, Stalin orders a search for the legendary missing gold of Tsar Nicholas II. For this task, he chooses Pekkala, the former investigator for the Tsar. To accomplish his mission, Pekkala will go undercover, returning to Siberia and the nightmare of his own past, where he was once a prisoner in the notorious Gulag known as Borodok. Pekkala must infiltrate a gang of convicts still loyal to the Tsar who, it is rumored, know the whereabouts of the precious gold. He soon learns that the best-kept secrets are those that no one even knows exist. In the brutal frozen fortress where his survival once made him a myth, he begins to unravel the true identity of a murdered inmate, whose own mission to Siberia has lain buried for years deep within the mysterious Archive 17, where long-lost files obscure a shocking conspiracy that could decide the future of the Soviet Union itself. As more people die around him, Pekkala must decide where his true loyalties lie, or else take his place among the dead. With the superb research and stunning suspense that are his trademarks, Sam Eastland delivers his most powerful Pekkala novel yet—the best in a mystery series riveting readers and reviewers alike. PRAISE FOR SAM EASTLAND AND HIS PEKKALA SERIES   Eye of the Red Tsar   “Highly imaginative . . . History mixes with fiction in an exciting story.”— USA Today   “A fantastic premise, frenetic action sequences and a stellar setting . . . What elevates this Russian period thriller . . . is its mad, brilliant hero.”— Kirkus Reviews (starred review)   “Gripping and memorable . . . Fans of Russian thrillers (Tom Rob Smith’s Child 44, Martin Cruz Smith’s Gorky Park, and David Benioff’s City of Thieves ) will want this.”— Library Journal   Shadow Pass   “An outstanding example of an unusual protagonist being used to excellent advantage.”— San Jose Mercury News   “Formidably researched . . . Eastland writes with visceral punch.” —Metro (U.K.)   “[A] fast-paced thriller full of twists and turns.”—Wichita Falls Times Record News Sam Eastland is the author of Shadow Pass and Eye of the Red Tsar . He is the grandson of a London police detective who served in Scotland Yard’s famous “Ghost Squad” during the 1940s. He lives in the United States and Great Britain and is currently working on his next novel. BORODOK LABOR CAMP VALLEY OF KRASNAGOLYANA SIBERIA In a cave, deep underground, lit by the greasy flame of a kerosene lamp, the man knelt in a puddle, his empty hands held out as if to catch drops of water which fell through the cracks in the ceiling. He was badly wounded, with deep cuts across his chest and arms. The homemade knife with which he had attempted to defend himself lay out of reach behind him. Head bowed, he stared with a look of confusion at his own reflection in the puddle, like a man who no longer recognized himself. Before him stretched the shadow of the killer who had brought him to this place. "I came here to offer you a reason to go on living," the killer said, "and this is how you repay me?" With fumbling, blood-smeared fingers, the man undid the button on his shirt pocket. He pulled out a crumpled photograph of a group of soldiers on horseback, dense forest in the background. The men leaned forward in their saddles, grinning at the camera. "They are my reason for living." "And now they will be your reason for dying." Slowly, the way people sometimes move in dreams, the killer stepped behind the man. With movements almost gentle, he grasped the man by his short and filthy hair, pulling his head back so that the tendons stood out in his neck. Then he drew a knife from the folds of his clothing, cut the man's throat, and held him like a lover while his heart bled dry. "Poskrebyshev!" The voice of Joseph Stalin exploded through the wall. In the adjoining room, Stalin's secretary sprang to his feet. Poskrebyshev was a short, round-faced man, bald except for a fringe of gray which arced around the back of his head and resembled the wreath of a Roman emperor. Like his master, he wore trousers tucked into black calfskin boots and a plain mandarin-collared tunic in precisely the same shade of brownish green as the rotten apples that two neighborhood bullies, Ermakov and Schwartz, used to hurl at him from their hiding places along the young Poskrebyshev's route to school. Since the war had broken out, one month before, there had been many such outbursts from the man Poskrebyshev referred to as Vozhd. The Boss. On September 1, 1939, as part of a secret agreement between Germany and Russia, buried in a peace treaty signed between the two countries and known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, Germany had invaded Poland.