Inspector O returns from a mission abroad to find his new police commander waiting at his office door. There has been a bank robbery—the first ever in Pyongyang—and the commander demands action, quickly. But is this urgency for real? Somewhere, someone in the North Korean leadership doesn’t want Inspector O to complete his investigation. And why not? What if the robbery leads to the highest levels of the regime? What if power, not a need for cash, is the real reason behind the heist at the Gold Star Bank? This isn’t a trail a detective in the Pyongyang police would want to follow to the end, even marked with monogrammed silk stockings. A Scottish policeman, a sultry Kazakh bank manager, and a mournful fellow detective combine to put O in the middle of a web of conspiracies that becomes more tangled—and dangerous—the more he pulls on the threads.