Journalist Colin Burke may have escaped with his life at the end of Soviet Sources, but he hasn’t gotten any savvier about protecting it. The regime in Moscow has changed, but the men in the corridors of power still have little interest in answering questions, and still employ an army of thugs to prevent people from asking them. For the moment, Burke’s questions are benign: His bosses at the magazine in Washington want a feel-good piece about Moscow’s Jewish community. However, what Burke discovers at a run-down synagogue is the possibility that Russia’s nuclear scientists are now making bombs for Syria. Burke’s got a hot story again, but he may not survive to collect the Pulitzer.