Someone is secretly and intently interested in the lives of four children who were mutilated by their mother. One murder, two, three… And they are all connected to this unfortunate family in one way or another. What secret is hidden in the past of these people? In the past? Nastya Kamenskaya doubts, analyzing the circumstances of the crimes. As always, there is no time to think — a girl has been abducted right from the hospital, and the rest of the children are in danger. Where is the source of this threat? An epiphany, like a flash of lightning, suddenly illuminates a situation that turns out to be much scarier than Nastya thought..."Marinina not only writes detective novels, but also answers eternal questions. The author treats his readers like a kind and experienced teacher to students who need support, guidance and guidance on the right path. Optimistic and practical in her didactics, Marinina poses the question “how to live" and tries to help the reader find his way to a better life in today's world. Marinina writes a modern novel "education of feelings" with her detective stories: the author's main goal is education through entertainment." — Anatoly Vishevsky, Grenell College, USA"Many of Alexandra Marinina's novels have been adapted into films in Russia and reworked into radio plays in Germany. Based on the fact that the purpose of these treatments is to capture viewers and listeners in the same way that readers are captured, the film and the radio play are not only additional works of fiction, but also interesting interpretations that have penetrated into the secret of Alexandra Marinina's success." — Sarah Hagi, University of Cologne, Germany"In the dialogues of fiction and trivial literature, one can find different ways of stylizing "verbality" in order to achieve the impression of spontaneous conversation. Everyday speech in A. Marinina's novels is characterized by an unusually high degree of animation, which is expressed, among other things, in the different forms of address of the interlocutors, in various shades of politeness and in the emotionality of the vocabulary used." — Wolfgang Stadler, Leopold Franzen University, Innsbruck, Austria.