In 1988, after a brief but devastating war, the United States has occupied the Soviet Union. The Gulags are empty, the KGB has been dissolved. Ex-CIA agent and private investigator DEAN JOPLIN, sardonic, cynical, feels trapped between two worlds. Then he takes on a grisly murder case, which twists through a surreal, chaotic country where American commercialism -- Sleeping Beauty's castle is under construction in Red Square -- is replacing communism, and the wounded Russian soul cries out for vengeance. His investigation leads to Siberia, targeted by American nuclear missiles during the final, unhinged spasms of the war. Condemned by the outside world to isola­tion, the inhabitants are desperate for freedom - and Dean's murder case holds the key.