The 4th book in the Inspector Pekkala series As Hitler's forces smash into Soviet territory, annihilating the Red Army divisions in its path, a lone German scout plane is forced down. Contained within the briefcase of its passenger is the seemingly inconsequential painting of a hyalophoria cecropia, otherwise known as a red moth.

Military Intelligence dismisses the picture as insignificant, but in the state of emergency Stalin suspects a German plot. He summons his old adversary, Inspector Pekkala - the elusive Finn who was once Tsar Nicholas II's personal detective - to...

September 1939. Even as fighting rages in Poland, Stalin's long time obsession with the missing treasure of Tsar Nicholas II is rekindled. An informant claims to have information about the whereabouts of the man entrusted by the Tsar with hiding his gold. As the news of the informant reaches Stalin, however, the man is knifed to death.

A soldier returns from the frontline of battle to report that Pekkala's charred body has been found at the site of an ambush. But Stalin refuses to believe that the indomitable Pekkala is dead. On Stallin's orders, Pekkala's assistant Kirov travels deep into the forests of Western Russia, following a trail of clues to a wilderness where partisans wage a brutal campaign against the Nazi invaders. Unknown to Kirov, he is being led into a trap.

In the midst of the fighting, two Russian soldiers seek refuge in the crypt of a German church. There, clutched in the hands of a skeleton priest, they find The Shepherd; a priceless icon thought to have been destroyed long ago.

April, 1945. East of Berlin, the Red Army stands poised to unleash its final assault upon the ruined capital of Hitler's Thousand Year Reich. To the north, at a lonely outpost near the Baltic sea, German scientists perfect a guidance system for the mighty V2 rocket, which has already caused massive damage to the cities of London and Antwerp.