The Taiga Syndrome is a fairy tale run amok, following an unnamed Ex-Detective on a thrilling quest. She is hired by a betrayed husband, convinced by a brief telegram that his second ex-wife desires to be found after fleeing to the far reaches of the earth.

The Ex-Detective embarks on her adventure with a translator, venturing into a snowy, hostile forest where strange events unfold. Tales of Hansel and Gretel and Little Red Riding Hood echo through her journey, as she navigates a territory overwhelmed by the primitive excesses of Capitalism—accumulation and expulsion, corruption and cruelty.

Her quest is more experiential than moral, revealing profound truths: just as love can fly away, sometimes unloving flies away as well. Sometimes, leaving everything behind is the only option left.

How can anyone describe this book? It isn't a parable, a fairy story, or a poem, but rather a mixture of all three. It is beautiful and it is comic. It is philosophical and it is cheery.

What we suppose we are trying fumblingly to say is, in a word, that it is Thurber. There are only a few reasons why everybody has always wanted to read this kind of story: if you have always wanted to love a Princess; if you always wanted to be a Prince; if you always wanted the wicked Duke to be punished; or if you always wanted to live happily ever after.

Too little of this kind of thing is going on in the world today. But all of it is going on valorously in The 13 Clocks.