When last we saw Viktor, in the final pages of Death & the Penguin, he was taking his seat aboard the Expedition to Antarctica plane, fearing for his life. Meanwhile, Penguin Misha was left abandoned in a clinic recovering from a heart transplant. Now, in Penguin Lost, we join Viktor for his brief stay in & escape from Antarctica to discover that, characteristically, he has fallen on his feet. Visiting, on his return to Kiev, Penguinologist Pidpaly's grave, Viktor mistakes an elusive child in white shirt & black shorts for Misha on funeral duty. He is first interrogated & then befriended by a Mafia boss who, while burying his contract-killed son-in-law, is also running for election as People's Deputy. Viktor helps in his campaign, & is rewarded with introductions to those able to further his desperate search for Misha, said to be in the zoo of the murderous Chechen Khachayev. For Viktor, it is both a quest & an odyssey of atonement; for the reader, an experience as rich, topical & black-humouredly illuminating as Death & the Penguin.