It is the dawn of the 1960s. To investigate the gruesome death of a young physicist, KGB officer Major Alexander Vasin leaves Moscow for Arzamas-16, a top-secret research city that does not appear on any map. There he comes up against the most cutthroat brain trust in Russia who, on the orders of Khrushchev, are building a nuclear weapon with 3800 times the destructive potential of the Hiroshima bomb. As long as they complete this project on time, these scientists can do as they wish, and they will ensure that Vasin's investigation hits a snag. A former Moscow bureau chief for Newsweek, Owen Matthews has crafted a thriller described by London's Daily Mail as "ferocious, authentic and utterly terrifying."