People no longer fear death, no longer lose loved ones. A soul that holds a Ticket goes to the Country of Eternal Summer. There, lying is practically impossible, because a soul can be read just as easily as an open book.
But it isn’t that simple. People remain people—they intrigue, fight for power. The constant rivalry between Britain and the USSR’s intelligence services nearly leads to a new war. Rachel White, an employee of the intelligence agency of the Winter Directorate (the “living”), hunting for a “mole,” discovers that there is a threat even more frightening than the ambitions of those in power.