with greyness, numbing cold,nfetigue, sickness, shortages, duplicity,npettiness, impersonality.nIt is a murder mystery. Unlikenmany similar works that are setnin the West, conventional potboilers,nthe unraveling doesn'tnoccur because someone is interestednin justice (a paramountnconcern of those ranging fromnSherlock Holmes to Mike Hammer),nbut because the bureaucracyndemands it: forms . . .