In 1993, arriving in Moscow the day after Mitchell's first novel The Hidden One ended in Paris, Ashley Cooper and his daughter, Annie, continue their quest to become 'Of the Iskandarov'. The setting for the second book in The People of the Blood Trilogy is the newly formed Russian Federation and ends in the wild, magical arctic region, a place scarred and corrupted by Stalinism. Accompanied by the love of his life, Ashley faces dangerous Iskandarov tests in the realm of the demons while searching for his father's gulag diary. The diary contains proof of the so-called 'Iron Cage' and is likely to get Ashley killed. The mystical Iskandarovs are not truly Russian but a once powerful clan from the Caucasus, just now emerging from the shadows of communism.
