“Black Monkey” is the new novel by Zakhar Prilepin, combining psychological drama and a political thriller. A young journalist is admitted by order of the editorial office into a government-secret laboratory where they study especially cruel children. Seeing in this an excellent subject for a book and an opportunity to escape family problems, he sets off on a complex investigation and tries to connect the savage murder of residents in an entire apartment building in a Russian town, the ancient legend of an attack on the city by “short folks,” and the history of cruel child soldiers in Africa… Unless all of this is a product of his imagination.