Lord Lister No. 0310: Het geheim der steppen

In the bleak frost of a Russian winter, a lone troika brakes before a remote manor perched on the edge of endless snow‑covered steppe. Baron Dobrinsky greets the intrepid Englishman John Raffles and his companion Charly Brand, offering warmth against the biting wind while the surrounding silence hints at hidden dangers beneath the frozen landscape. The stark isolation, the howling cold and the occasional howl of wolves set a tone of uneasy intrigue, and the baron’s polite, accented English masks a deeper curiosity about his unexpected guests.

Raffles, ever the restless adventurer, arrives with no fixed purpose other than his appetite for the unknown, and the manor’s austere hospitality quickly draws him into whispers of a secret that the icy plains have guarded for generations. As the night deepens and the moon casts an eerie glow over the endless white, the trio senses that the tranquil welcome may conceal a puzzle rooted in the very heart of the steppe—one that promises both peril and revelation for those daring enough to pursue it.