When a man is found dead in an aster meadow near Northford, Saskatchewan, on a lovely fall day in 1975, Sergeant Arnold Powell is tasked with unravelling a puzzling case with entirely too many potential suspects. The dead man in question, Clayton Dalrymple—AKA Ivan Kalik, a corrupt KGB defector and generally unpleasant person all around—was not the town’s most popular citizen. The number of people who might have wanted him dead is extensive, and unfortunately for him, not offset by a list of anyone in particular who wanted him alive.