A Moscow police officer is transferred to Ukraine as punishment by the Supreme Soviet, and ends up in Pripyat, the closest place to the Chernobyl nuclear centre. Just two days after his arrival he witnesses what will be the greatest nuclear tragedy of the Soviet Union, hushed up by the authorities in an attempt to protect the politicians responsible for the disaster. As the thirtieth anniversary of the explosion and radioactive leak, on 26th April 1986, was approaching, Pasamontes used the incident that at the hands of Perestroika destroyed an entire region of Russia an inspiration for his noir novel, in which his investigator searches alone for the true perpetrators of the catastrophe.