Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, is renamed Frunze by Stalin, a name it retains until 1991, when it reverts to Bishkek. Mikhail Frunze, an early Bolshevik revolutionary and a contender for power after Lenin’s death in 1924, died mysteriously in 1924 during a stomach operation “ordered” by the Politburo. This followed another “strange” car accident in which Frunze’s driver died. After Frunze’s death, the doctors who participated in the operation also mysteriously die, and the investigation doesn’t get far. A writer attempts to publish his novel, “The Story of the Moon,” in which he reconstructs the events, but he too is killed.
