Popular writer Tatyana Zhuravskaya, after a long break, returned to writing and was just finishing what she considered her best novel when her life suddenly went down the drain. First, her husband announced that he was leaving for another woman—so to survive it, Tatyana had to go for treatment to an Austrian clinic. And after her return something truly terrible happened: Zhuravskaya encountered in reality... the hero of her new novel, a maniac Mark Shatyilo! Or rather, the one who decided to wear his face. The stranger offered the writer a monstrous game: she must read a detective story he wrote without a final ending and figure out the murderer. If Tatyana makes a mistake, an innocent victim will die…