For more than twenty years a hidden hand has ruled the backstreets of Ulan Baatar, but now Muunokhoi, the once untouchable head of the Mongolia's largest and most powerful criminal empire, has finally been caught. It should be the Serious Crime Team's finest hour. But nothing is ever that simple in the new Mongolia. Ineptitude and petty corruption have dogged the department for years, but when Muunokhoi's trial starts to collapse, Nergui and Doripalam--the ex-head of the Team and his one-time protege--are forced to acknowledge that something truly rotten lies at the heart of the organization they have dedicated their lives to. With the crime lord's acquittal impending, and his revenge a cold certainty, Nergui and Doripalam are not even sure they can trust each other. In The Adversary, Michael Walters returns to industrial ruins of Ulan Baatur and the bleak emptiness of the Mongolian steppes in a tense battle between a master criminal and the men determined to bring him to justice.