In the harsh winter of 1620, a terrible double murder sows panic in Madrid: the corpses of a young woman and a child whose heart was cut out are found. Urban gossips soon appoint a respected and outrageously decent notary, Sebastian Castro, as a criminal. A murderer who turned the whole of Madrid against an innocent man is walking free, and Castro, who inadvertently witnessed the will of a very conscientious aristocrat, does not even suspect what he risked. One denunciation from a narrow—minded and frightened citizen is enough - and several lives are shattered. However, the Castro children manage to escape: thirteen-year-old Alonso, a carefree teenager yesterday, finds himself on the street with a baby brother in his arms, where he is threatened with hunger, cold and arrest. From now on, his whole life is subordinated to a single goal — to save his parents from the Inquisition. And his friends help him — they are just as homeless and with the same flame in their hearts. Sandra Asa worked as a lawyer for many years, but quit her practice to pursue her dream of a writing career. Her debut "Blood Libel", the first part of the dilogy, is an exciting adventure thriller with elements of noir, judicial procedural and even a picaresque novel, worthy of both Alexandre Dumas and Arturo Perez—Reverte, which instantly became a cult in Spain. Serial murders, the whole Inquisition, a family destroyed by prejudice, revenge and justice, rapid growing up and finding your way — this is an ideal historical novel, and we have never seen such a golden age. For the first time in Russian!