The author of political crime thrillers, Caryl Férey, a seasoned traveler to many parts of the planet, receives a proposal from two of his publishers: to travel and write about one of the most monstrous cities in the world, Norilsk in distant Siberia, with the highest rate of atmospheric pollution, where the temperature ranges between 20 to 60 degrees Celsius below zero.
The old gulag, set up by Stalin for the extraction of nickel and rare minerals, continues to operate today under Putin and the oligarchs, while the Soviet buildings are collapsing. No one can visit it without permission from the Federal Security Service, the successor of the KGB.