Beauty Was Her Downfall

Private detective Tatyana Ivanova arrives in Crimea to rest by the sea together with her friend Prokhor, expecting a quiet vacation. But calm is shattered when, during a yacht trip, they find the body of a drowned girl—the winner of a local beauty contest and the daughter of an influential official. The police insist it was an accident, yet the girl’s father is convinced: it was murder. Tatyana takes on the case and is drawn into a web of secrets, jealousy, and carefully hidden motives. The clues lead into a world of temptation, vice, and betrayal, where behind the bright façade of glossy glamour lie terrible secrets. To get to the truth, she will have to put her own life on the line…

Marina Serova is a bright name in contemporary Russian detective fiction. She graduated from the Law Faculty of Moscow State University, worked in the Office of the Prosecutor General, and took part in operational work. The author of many fast-paced suspense stories, whose total print run exceeded twenty million copies.