During Gorbatchov's perestroika, Archer Sloan, a Chicago student, visits Moscow while the Soviet Union is changing from Communist to Wild West capitalist society. Purely by bad luck, he becomes a pawn in a dangerous cat and mouse game for a black Madonna, a precious icon, which was stolen from Russian Orthodox clergy by the quickly rising, rich and corrupt Russian mafia, and then by a black market-girl he followed just as a flirt who didn't know herself what she nicked. The well-connected mobsters find him and threaten his life in no time, and the US embassy isn't very helpful, worse, it's also infiltrated...
Back in the U.S.S.R.
During Gorbatchov's perestroika, Archer Sloan, a Chicago student, visits Moscow while the Soviet Union is changing from Communist to Wild West capitalist society. Purely by bad luck, he becomes a pawn in a dangerous cat and mouse game for...
