Every city contains secret places. Moscow in the tumultuous 1990s is no
different, its citizens seeking safety in a world below the streets — a
dark, cavernous world of magic, weeping trees, and albino jackdaws, where exiled
pagan deities and faery-tale creatures whisper strange tales to those who would
listen. Galina is a young woman caught, like her contemporaries, in the seeming
lawlessness of the new Russia. In the midst of this chaos, her sister Maria
turns into a jackdaw and flies away — prompting Galina to join Yakov, a
policeman investigating a rash of recent disappearances. Their search will take
them to the underground realm of hidden truths and archetypes, to find
themselves caught between reality and myth, past and present, honor and betrayal
. . . the secret history of Moscow.