Razumov aims to overcome the denial of his noble birth by a brilliant career in the tsarist bureaucracy created by Peter the Great. But in pre-revolutionary Russia Peter's legacy is autocracy tempered by assassination, and Razumov is soon caught in a tragic web with Haldin's trustful sister Natalia ...

Razumov aims to overcome the denial of his noble birth by a brilliant career in the tsarist bureaucracy created by Peter the Great. But in pre-revolutionary Russia Peter's legacy is autocracy tempered by assassination, and Razumov is soon caught in a tragic web with Haldin's trustful sister Natalia in spy-haunted Geneva.