Captain Alexei Dimitrevich Korolev

It is 1937, and Captain Alexei Korolev finds himself on an airplane bound for Odessa after the suspicious suicide of a loyal young party member who supposedly had an illicit relationship with the party director. His instructions are to determine if her suicide was actually a cover-up for murder, and if so, to find her killer. Korolev finds help from several quarters, but none of them can make up for the one important fact of his case which he cannot discuss.

Captain Alexei Korolev has nothing to complain about. But for the first time in a long time, Korolev is about to be truly happy: his son Yuri is coming to visit for an entire week. Shortly after Yuri's arrival, however, Korolev receives an urgent call from his boss - it seems an important man has been murdered, and Korolev is the only detective they're willing to assign to this sensitive case. And the consequences of interfering with a case tied to State Security or the NKVD can be severe. Korolev is suddenly faced with much more than just discovering a murderer's identity; he must decide how far he'll go to see justice served... and what he's willing to do to protect his family.