THE SEQUEL TO THE CULT BESTSELLERS "RED CHAINS" AND "HAMMER OF WITCHES". THE NEW CASE OF ALINA AND GRONSKY. FROM AN AUTHOR WHO HAS OVERPLAYED THE RULES OF THE GENRE AND TURNED THRILLER INTO HIGH ART. Five victims. Every five years Petersburg. Always locked from the inside of the apartment. Always lilies with their suffocatingly sweet scent. Always young girls who gave their lives without the slightest struggle. There were always ragged deep bites on their flesh, as if they had been bitten by an animal rather than a human. Nothing seems to connect the victims. Besides stunning beauty and death... to seek the truth. Wandering in the dark is the Sphinx's mansion. The sons of the most distinguished fathers study at the Elite Academy located within its walls. Their homework is to trap another victim, their exams are someone's death. But who is the real killer here and the puppeteer playing with weak minds? The ideologue of the genetic superiority of the elites, the head of the Academy? A gloomy maid with a disfigured face? A charming psychology teacher? Or is the Manor itself a living maze of death, with a story scarier than any nightmare?_________________________________________________________"This book is not just a thriller, it is a dive into the icy river of time, where the past, like an invisible ghost, rises from the depths of darkness and whispers in your ear. Obraztsov filigrees into the plot secrets that do not want to be revealed, and fears that do not let you sleep. Every page is a step on the fragile glass of high society, every turn is a door behind which an ancient evil hides." — MARIA SKRIPOVA, author of the thrillers "The Unreliable Narrator" and "The Secret Observer", winner of the Russian Detective Award in the categories "Detective Thriller" and "Readers' Choice", "Reading the Sphinx Manor is like plunging into an enchanted dream, where the boundaries of reality are blurred, and the whole world turns into a mysterious and shaky illusion. It's like you're in another dimension where anything is possible. And this "everything" exists at one point in space: secret treasures, mirror doppelgangers, dungeon knights, a monster that hunts beauties, references to mythology. . . And the action unfolds against the background of an ancient Manor — gloomy and alluring with its mysteries. The author's charming style takes you irrevocably into this dream, and you just want to stay in the world of illusions and secrets forever!" — YULIA YAKOVLEVA, author of the Books around me blog.