Investigator Anna Sterkhova came to Saint Petersburg to claim her inheritance. Her late aunt Ruf, for her entire life, worked in the theater’s costume department and collected discarded costumes of great artists. After the paperwork is completed, Anna transfers the costume collection to a museum of theatrical art, but soon receives a call from a museum staff member who informs her that behind the lining of one of the costumes they found an old photograph.
The results of the examination determine that it is a post-mortem photograph of a girl in a “post mortem” style, which imitated the image of a living person. Post mortem was popular in the early part of the last century; however, the found photo has a later date. Anna finds out that the costume in which the photograph of the dead girl was hidden belonged to the famous actress Tamila Teplyakova, whose life tragically ended on the stage: she fell into an open trapdoor during a performance. Thus, Anna Sterkhova must unravel a tangle of secret connections and mysterious events to understand what happened to Tamila Teplyakova and what role the horrifying photograph played in her death. In this gripping detective story, Anna Sterkhova will confront ghosts of the past, hidden intrigues, and gloomy secrets—turning out to be much closer than she could have imagined.