9 Days

After burying a friend who died in a car crash, the characters discover documents, photographs, and video recordings on his laptop that decisively contradict what they know about themselves and each other. The characters begin an investigation, the results of which will go far beyond their ideas of “reality.”

Before you is an outstanding representative of Russian-language adult speculative fiction, and, what is especially pleasing, written in good language. And the key here is precisely: “adult” (ideally 30+), “Russian” (the national soul, not just adventures of the body), and “language” (finally). That is why the judgment is also fair that this novel is not science fiction, not metaphysical refinement, and not a detective story, but the author’s favorite genre, once called in American literature a «true story which never happened»—an entirely truthful story that, in principle, could not have happened.