A fairy tale run amok, The Taiga Syndrome follows an unnamed Ex-Detective as she searches for a couple that has fled to the far reaches of the Earth. A betrayed husband is convinced by a brief telegram that his second ex-wife wants him to track her down - that she wants to be found. He hires the Ex-Detective, who sets out with a translator into a snowy, hostile forest where strange things happen and translation serves to betray both sense and the senses. The stories of Hansel and Gretel and Little Red Riding Hood haunt the Ex-Detective's quest into a territory overrun with the primitive excesses of capitalism - accumulation and expulsion, corruption and cruelty - although the lessons of her journey are more experiential than moral: just as love can fly away, sometimes unloving flies away too.