It is 1939. In the Soviet Union, Stalin has placed his hopes on a 30-ton steel monster, known as the RED COFFIN. But the design is not yet complete. And when the weapon's secretive and eccentric architect is found murdered, Stalin sends for Pekkala, his most trusted investigator. He is convinced that a sinister group called the White Guild intends to bring about a German invasion before the RED COFFIN is ready. While engineers struggle to complete the design of the tank, Pekkala must expose plans to propel Germany and Russia into conflict.

It is the time of the Great Terror. Inspector Pekkala — known as the Emerald Eye — was the most famous detective in all Russia. He was the favourite of the Tsar. Now he is the prisoner of the men he once hunted. Like millions of others, he has been sent to the gulags in Siberia and, as far as the rest of the world is concerned, he is as good as dead. But a reprieve comes when he is summoned by Stalin himself to investigate a crime. His mission — to uncover the men who really killed the Tsar and his family, and to locate the Tsar's treasure. The reward for success will be his freedom and the chance to re-unite with a woman he would have married if the Revolution had not torn them apart. The price of failure — death. Set against the backdrop of the paranoid and brutal country that Russia became under the rule of Stalin, Eye of the Red Tsar introduces a compelling new figure to readers of crime fiction.