Ufa is going crazy. The new capital of the legitimate government of Russia, once a trading post in the far east, is now a fast-growing boom town. Into this maelstrom come peddlers and exotic dancers, criminals and craftsmen, nobles and assassins. Crime is running rampant and the city guards that passes for policemen don't have a clue how to handle it—and wouldn’t know a clue if they stumbled right over it. They can manage to walk a beat, at least in broad daylight. But solve a crime? Not a chance. And Czar Michael Romanov and his officials aren’t any help, since they’re pre-occupied with building a nation out of spit and bailing wire. But the bargirl who was murdered had friends who cared. And thosefriends call in Vasilii Lyapuno, an engineer working at the newly-founded Dacha in Ufa and loves up-timer murder mysteries. Can Vasilii track down the killer? Luckily for him, he has the assistance of another bargirl named Miroslava, who has a unique way of seeing the world. Together they might figure out who did what to whom and who was responsible for the crime. Crimes, rather. Murder starts adding up.

Charleen Dreesen is stranded on Casa Verde station without the proper ticket to ship out on an interstellar spaceship. With no berths in the offing, she's looking for any way she can find to make a credit. Then she meets Joey, his sister Darleen, his father Mike and his pet rat Mister Rodent—who are all worse off than she is. Mike's behind in his kickbacks to the local crime boss, and neither he nor the kids have interfaces or much in the way of education. So Charleen's now in bad company as well as stranded and broke. Before you know it, people are trying to kill her. She's left with no choice but to start climbing the ladder of La Causa, the organization that controls crime in the Casa system. And if she's not careful she’ll wind up in politics. The Cordoba and Drake Combines are being challenged by the rising Alliance created by Jenny Starchild and the crew of her starship Arachne. Their control over the Pamplona sector is starting to crack and the Casa system is caught in the middle. Charleen may have to raise the bloody flag of revolution...