A collection of seven detective novellas whose action takes place parallel to the events of Nikolai Svechin’s novels "Avvakum’s Testament" and "Hunting the Tsar." Fearless Nizhny Novgorod police detective Alexei Lykov and his friend and colleague, State Councillor Pavel Blagovo, investigate case after case—each more tangled than the last: a gang of horse thieves, a village of stranglers, the murder of a gymnasium student, the mysterious treasure of Yemelyan Pugachev, the poisoning of a merchant with poisonous quails, and also the murder of a pharmacist-drug dealer.
A stylish, gripping detective story—in the best traditions of the retro genre!