The iron curtain has fallen and a screen of nouveau capitalism stands in its place. Though the New Russia is foreign to Renko, the corruption and brutality that he encounters are all too familiar. The seeming suicide of one of Russia's new billionaires leads Arkady Renko to Chernobyl and the Zone of Exclusion, the still radioactive site of great catastrophe - a spectral netherworld populated by the corrupted, the obstinate and the reckless.