Deadly games

At the Kursk railway terminus in Moscow two men have been kidnapped in broad daylight. One, a small-time criminal and drug-addict, has already been found dead along the tracks. The other has simply disappeared. It looks like a simple case, but the second man is Vadim Belkin, a nationally known journalist and President Brezhnev's personal nominee for the press corps reporting on round two of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks. Special Investigator Shamrayev has only seven days in which to find Brezhnev's favourite reporter -- preferably alive. The only clue is an incomplete manuscript written by Belkin. It reads like fiction, telling a strange tale of street gangs in thrall to a master crinimal and drug-trafficking on a vast scale. The deeper Shamrayev probes, the wider the web of intrigue and corruption stretches, implicating men in high places. And the closer he moves to the truth, the more elusive it becomes and the shorter the time at his disposal. This brilliant and fast-moving thriller by the authors of Red Square casts a questioning light into the dark corners of life in the Soviet Union, where the existence of drug problems and the insidious corruption which accompanies them is officially denied.