Baron Aminin and Death at the Masquerade

A masquerade, death, and a husband holding a knife—too straightforward a picture to be trusted without question. Investigators Aminin and Kosolapov take on the case and prove that the truth most often hides where no one bothers to look.

During the masquerade at Prince Golitsyn’s home, Anna Izmalkova is murdered. Near the body, they find her husband—a elderly man with a deranged gaze and a bloodied knife. In addition to the police, the case is joined by the court councillor Felix Aminin and his assistant Terentiy Kosolapov.

The bailiff is certain everything is obvious: Anna Timofeevna was caught by her husband, who suspected an affair and, in a fit of jealousy, killed her. But Aminin and Kosolapov notice that there are too many inconsistencies in this story. It is precisely these clues that push the investigators to go further—because behind the convenient version, it seems, lies a far more cunning scheme.